
Class El^=M-, 

Book t^ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



A TOUR 

AROUND NEW YORK 

AND 

MY SUMMER ACRE 

BEING 
THE RECREATIONS OF 



BY 

JOHN FLAVEL MINES, LL.D. 

" Nothing is so reaily tuiu as thtit which is oU" 
ILLUSTRATED 







NEW YORK '^IIIT^^C 

HARPER & BROTHERS. FRANKLIN SQUARE 
1893 



^ I 



.3 



Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers. 

AU rig-Mis rttrrved. 




INAVGLKATION OK I'RKSIDENT \V.\>111M; ION 






\.\0 






/NGTOM 







^\^<# TO 

^V" MY DEAR SON 

MASTER FELIX OLDBOY, Jr. 

WHO HAS BEEN THE PLEASANT COMPANION OP' THESE ROADSIDE 

RAMBLES AND DAYS OF SUNSHINE, AND TO WHOM I COMMIT 

THE PLEASANT TASK OF WRITING UP FORTY YEARS 

HENCE THE SCENES HIS EYES HAVE WITNESSED 

IN OUR WALKS THROUGH THE CITY WHICH 

^ WE BOTH HAVE LEARNED TO LOVE 

THIS VOLUME 

Us DeDicateO 



By Transfer 

D. C. Public Library 

OCT 3 - 1939 



PREFATORY NOTE 



The sketches gathered in this volume were written by the 
late Colonel John F. Mines for newspaper publication, and 
appeared, first, the "Tour," in the New York Evefiiiig Post, 
and afterwards the " Summer Acre," in the New York Com- 
mercial Advertiser. From their beginning they had singular 
good-fortune in engaging public attention and exciting in- 
terest, and many requests for preservation of them in per- 
manent form were received by their author and his editors. 
After the death of Colonel Mines the sketches were found 
among papers in possession of his family, and are here 
presented in the order of arrangement which he had in- 
dicated. The text remains after revision substantially as 
it was written ; a few passages have been transferred to new 
relations for the sake of congruity, a few have been reduced 
to foot-notes ; duplications have been avoided, and some al- 
lusions to mere news of the day have been removed. The 
passage on Governor Morgan Lewis, in Chapter XX., is 
taken, by kind permission of the Rev. Dr. Dix, from a paper 
by Colonel Mines in a late number of the Trinity Record. 
Editorial notes are marked by the letter " L." The work has 
been enriched by many pictures of scenes referred to by the 
author, and further illustrations not directly called for by 
his text have been introduced, that the volume may be made 



Viii PREFATORY NOTE 

more complete pictorially ; all of them, it is believed, will 
be welcome to New Yorkers who find pleasure and pride 
in the history of their city. The reader of these ingenious 
and instructive papers may find it useful to identify the time 
of their production as in the years 1886-90 inclusive. 

James E. Learned. 
New York, 

September, 1892. 



CONTENTS 



AROUND NEW YORK 

CHAPTER I 

Suggestions from an Anniversary Celebration — New York near Half a 
Century Ago — A Reminiscence of the Days when Trinity Church was 
New — Preachers and Laymen of a Past Generation . . . Page i 

CHAPTER II 

An Obliterated Park— Some Old Churches — Departed Glories of Varick 
and Laight Streets — Mr. Greenough's School — Riley's Museum Ho. 
tel— The " Troop A" of the " Forties" lo 

CHAPTER III 

Columbia College as It Was — A Commencement Forty Years Ago — 
Riots that Cost Life — Landmarks of Chelsea — An Ecclesiastical 
Romance 23 

CHAPTER IV 

To Albany by Sloop— An Incident of Steamboat Competition— The 
Romance of a Convict — Genesis of Fashionable Parks — The " Pro- 
fessorship of New York " 34 

CHAPTER V 

Echoes of the Streets— Merchants of a Past Generation— Solid Men 
who Enjoyed Life — Museum Days— The Old Auctioneers —The 
Heroes of Commerce 43 

CHAPTER VI 

Broadway in Simpler Days — Among the Old-time Theatres— May Meet- 
ings at the Tabernacle— The First Sewing-machine— Broadway Gar- 
dens and Churches— A Night with Christy's Minstrels— The Ravels 
at Niblo's 55 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER VII 



The Poetry of Every-day Life — A Protest Against the Goth — My Grand- 
mother's Home — An Era Without Luxuries — Stately Manners of the 
Past Page 73 

CHAPTER VIII 

Ecclesiastical Raids by Night — Bowery Village Methodists — Charlotte 
Temple's Home — A Book-store of Lang Syne — Old Lafayette Place 
— The Tragedy of Charlotte Canda — A Reminder of Tweed . 86 

CHAPTER IX 

Eccentricities of Memory — Queer Street Characters — The Only Son of 
a King — Idioms of a Past Generation — Old Volunteer Firemen — A 
Forgotten Statesman 98 

CHAPTER X 

Christmas in the Older Days — A Flirtation Under the Mistletoe — Six- 
penny Sleigh-rides — Literature of Our Boyhood — Santa Claus in Our 
Grandmothers' Homes — Decorating the Churches 11 1 

CHAPTER XI 

A Metropolis of Strangers — Some Old Mansion-houses on the East Side 
— Characteristics of Bowery Life — Bull's Head and the Amphitheatre 
— The Stuyvesant Pear-tree — A Haunted House 124 

CHAPTER XII 

Our City Burial-plots — Illustrious Dust and Ashes — A Woman's Fifty 
Years of Waiting — Three Hebrew Cemeteries — The Burking Epi- 
sode — Slaves of the Olden Time 135 

CHAPTER XIII 

Echoes of Sweet Singers — Old Theatres on Broadway — An Accidental 
Thoroughfare — Evolution of Union Square — A Street that was Not 
Opened — History of a Church Bell 147 

CHAPTER XIV 

Summer Breezes at the Battery — A Soldier of the Last Century — Knick- 
erbockers and their Homes — An Old-time Stroll up Broadway . 161 



CONTENTS Xi 

CHAPTER XV 

Life at Eighty-seven Years — Memories of Robert Fulton — What the 
First Steamboat Looked Like — Sunday in Greenwich Village — A 
Primitive Congregation — Flirting in the Galleries . . . Page 175 

CHAPTER XVI 

On the East Side — The Old Shipping Merchants — Jacob Leisler — A 
Paradise of Churches — The Dominie's Garden — Moral and Religious 
Sanity of Old New York 184 

CHAPTER XVII 

When Harlem was a Village — Fishing for Flounders — The Canal Mania 
— An Ancient Toll-bridge — Twenty Years After — Mott's Canal and 
His Haven 201 

CHAPTER XVIII 

The First Brass Band — " The Light Guard Quickstep " — General Train- 
ing-day — A Falstaffian Army — Militiamen in their Glory — Our Crack 
Corps 213 

CHAPTER XIX 

Colonial Footprints — Haunts of Washington and Howe — Country-seat 
of Alexander Hamilton — East Side Journeyings — Old Days in York- 
ville and Harlem — The Beekman Mansion 225 

CHAPTER XX 

A Civic Pantheon — First Blood of the Revolution — Merchants who 
were Statesmen— The Disinherited Daughter— In an Old Tavern . 242 

CHAPTER XXI 

Teakettles as Modes of Motion — Two Leaves from an Old Merchant's 
Itinerary — Quaker Nooks and Covenanters' Haunts — City Farm- 
houses — Up Breakneck Hill — Harlem Lane in Its Glory — Summer 
Attractions of Manhattan Streets 259 

CHAPTER XXII 

The Ancient Mill at Kingsbridge— Marching with Washington — A Pa- 
troon in the Hay-field— Ghosts of Old Houses — The Stryker and 



Xll CONTENTS 

Hopper Mansions — Richmond Hill — The Warren and Spencer 
Homesteads — -Ancient Earthworks Page 272 

CHAPTER XXni 

Politicians of the Olden Time — Samuel Swartwout's Strange Career — 
Thurlow Weed and Horatio Seymour — Statesmen of the New School 
— Harmony in Old Tammany Hall 287 

CHAPTER XXIV 

Public Opinion Opposed to Banks — Birth and Growth of the System 
— The Yellow-fever Terror — Personal Reminiscences — Origin of 
Some New York Banks — Circumventing the Legislature — Wild-cat 
Banking 297 

CHAPTER XXV 

Pudding Rock — An Ancient School-house — A Temperance Hamlet 
gone Wrong — Landmarks and Memories of the New Parks — Van 
Cortlandt and Pelham Bay — The Unknown Land of the Bronx — 
Rural Scenes in a City's Boundaries 309 

CHAPTER XXVI 

Manhattan Island — Some Ancient Homesteads — Work of the Wood- 
man's Axe — A Mystery of Dress and Architecture — Block-houses 
and Earthworks — A Sacred Grove 322 

CHAPTER XXVII 

An Unexplored Region — Traces of Cowboys and Hessians — Lords of the 
Manor — Through a Glass Darkly — Old Homes and Haunts . . 336 



CONTENTS Xill 

MY SUMMER ACRE 

CHAPTER I 

Felix Oldboy's Hot Weather Home — On the East River, Facing Hell 
Gate — A Stately Mansion of Seventy-five Years Ago — Solitude in the 
City Page 349 

CHAPTER II 

The Dark Phantom which Dogged a Postman's Feet — A Garden Calen- 
dar — Notes of the Farm Acre 358 

CHAPTER III 

The New World Venice — Panorama of East River Islands — A Lovely 
Water Journey — An Old-time Sheriif in his Home .... 365 

CHAPTER IV 

Happiness in a Canal-boat — Pulpit Criticisms — The Story of Ward's 
Island — In the Days of the Redcoats 373 

CHAPTER V 

Manhattan Birds and Fishes — Feathered Denizens of Hell Gate — Pri- 
meval Haunts on the City's Islands — A Matter of Piscatorial Con- 
science 381 

CHAPTER VI 

The Battle Story of the East River — Monuments of Revolutionary 
Days — A Defeat at Randall's Island — The Patriotism that Clustered 
about Hell Gate — Catching a Snook 390 

CHAPTER VII 

Panorama of Ancient East River Homes — A Low Dutch Farm-house 
—At Turtle Bay Farm— The Grove in the Woods— Old Graves at 
the Water-side 403 

CHAPTER Vlli 

The Hell Gate Colony— Glimpses of East River Homes— St. James's 
Church — The Astor Country-house — Where Irving wrote "Astoria" 
—The Home of Archibald Gracie— New York and its Visitors 420 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER IX 



Unsolved Problems of Life — The Old Post -road and its Hell Gate 
Branches — Homes of Merchant Princes — Manhattan's Biggest 
Tree Page 435 

CHAPTER X 

A Glance at Harlem — The Lesson of the Woodpecker — A Great Mill- 
pond that has Disappeared — The Otter Track and Benson's Creek — 
Grist-mills on Third Avenue — Old Dutch Homes and Names . 447 

CHAPTER XI 

Rambles Around Harlem — In My School-boy Days — Early Settlers and 
Their Homes — An Interior View — The Stage-coach Era — A Village 
Alderman of the Olden Time 459 

CHAPTER XII 

Indian Raids and Massacres — A Roll of Honor — The Old Dutch 
Church — St. Andrew's Parish — Days of Pestilence and Death . 477 

CHAPTER XIII 

Wrestling with Harlem Genealogies — Changes in Old Dutch Names — 
The Village Patentees and Their Descendants — Governor Nicolls 
Changes the Name to Lancaster — The Ancient Ferry-man and His 
P'ees 495 

CHAPTER XIV 

Criticised by a Crow — Farewells to the Old House by the River — Con- 
vinced that One Acre is Enough — An Old-time Harlem Letter — Our 
Family Dinner — The Last Night of " My Summer Acre " . . 508 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Inauguration of President Washington Frontispiece 

Trinity Church 3 

Trinity Church (second edifice) 5 

St. John's Chapel and Park 13 

The French Church in Pine Street 15 

Riley's Fifth Ward Hotel i3 

Statue of the Earl of Chatham 19 

Fort foot of Hubert Street 20 

The Jersey Prison Ship 22 

The General Theological Seminary 23 

Columbia College in 1850 25 

The Moore House 32 

Old Fire Bucket 33 

King's Bridge 35 

Map of New York, 17S2 37 

The State Prison 39 

The Kennedy, Watts, Livingston, and Stevens Houses .... 45 

View in New York, 1769 48 

The Jail (now the Hall of Records) 51 

Seal of New York City 54 

St. Paul's Chapel 58 

The Burning of Barnum's Museum (Ji 

Washington Hall ''63 

The Residence of Philip Hone, Broadway near Park Place . . . ' 67 

Lispenard Meadows 72 

The Federal Hall in Wall Street 74 

City Hall Park, 1822 81 

St. George's Church, Beekman Street 89 

Grave of Charlotte Temple 9^ 

Grave of Alexander Hamilton 94 

The Fire of 1835 99 

"The Race" io7 



XVI ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The Illumination in New York on the Occasion of the Inaugura- 
tion of President Washington iig 

Copper Crown from Cupola of King's College 123 

The Walton House in Later Years 125 

Doorway in the Hall of the Walton House 127 

An Old Goose-neck Engine 129 

The Stuyvesant Pear-tree 134 

Coenties Slip in the Dutch Times 136 

Tomb of Albert Gallatin 138 

Tomb of Captain Lawrence 140 

Grave of George Frederick Cooke 142 

Webb's Congress Hall, 142 Broadway 149 

Masonic Hall 152 

The Middle Dutch Church 160 

The Fort at the Battery 163 

The Old McComb Mansion 165 

Trinity Church (first edifice) 168 

Ruins of Trinity Church 170 

City Hotel, Broadway, 1812 172 

Monument to General Montgomery 173 

Sir Peter Warren's House, Greenwich Village 177 

The Clermont 179 

In Broad Street 185 

No. 2 Broadway, 1798 1S8 

Fraunce's Tavern, Broad and Pearl Streets igo 

The Stadt Huys 191 

North Dutch Church, Fulton Street 193 

Presbyterian Church, Wall Street 194 

Methodist Church, John Street 195 

Lutheran Church, William and Frankfort Streets 196 

The Brick Church, Park Row 197 

View of New York from the North-east 202 

View of New York from the South-west 203 

Mill Rock Fort 207 

Shakespeare Tavern 214 

View of New York Bay from the Battery, 1822 221 

Apthorpe Mansion, Bloomingdale 226 

The Jumel Mansion 230 

The Hamilton House 233 

The Gates Weeping Willow, Twenty-second St. and Third Ave. . 235 



ILLUSTRATIONS XVli 

PAGE 

Van der Heuvel (afterwards " Burnham's " House) 237 

Fort Clinton, at McGowan's Pass 239 

The Beekman House 240 

Fire in Olden Times, from a Fireman's Certificate 241 

Fort George, from the Water Front of the Present Battery . . . 243 

Plan of Fort George, Battery 245 

The Royal Exchange, Broad Street 247 

A Plan of the City of New York, from an Actual Survey, 1728 . 248 

Foot of Wall Street and Ferry-house, 1629 252 

Foot of Wall Street and Ferry-house, 1746 253 

The Sugar-house, Liberty Street 255 

Sugar-house in Liberty Street 258 

Pearl Street House and Ohio Hotel 261 

The Independent Battery, Bunker Hill 271 

Phillipse Manor-house 273 

Washington House, foot of Broadway 276 

The Stryker Homestead 278 

Richmond Hill » 280 

Map of the Fortifications around New York, 1814 2S3 

Tammany Hall, 181 1 293 

Tammany Hall in Later Times 295 

Old Walton House in 1776 299 

Tontine Coffee-house 301 

Manhattan Water-works, Chambers Street 303 

Van Cortlandt's Sugar-house 308 

Van Cortlandt Manor-house 317 

Distant View of the Palisades from Van Cortlandt Park . . . .319 

Petersfield, Residence of Petrus Stuyvesant 323 

Claremont 327 

House of Nicholas William Stuyvesant 331 

Block-house Overlooking Harlem River, i860 332 

Flag-stafT, Fort Washington 334 

Plan of Fort Washington 335 

Confluence of Spuyten Duyvil Creek and the Hudson 337 

The Lane in Van Cortlandt Park 341 

Van Cortlandt Manor-house 343 

New York from Brooklyn Heights, 1822 353 

An Old-time Fire-cap 357 

Dutch Houses , 363 

Pulpit, St. Paul's 375 



XVIU ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Mill Rock 377 

Reservoir 385 

Kip's House 393 

Plan of New York Island and Part of Long Island, showing the po- 
sition of the American and British Armies, August 27th, 1776 . 395 

Turtle Bay 396 

Old Storehouse at Turtle Bay 397 

Tower at Hallett's Point 397 

Fort Stevens and Mill Rock 398 

Fort Clinton and Harlem Creek 399 

Fort Fish 401 

Mechanics' Bell-tower 405 

The Walter Franklin House 407 

Jacob Harsen House 408 

Jacob Arden House 411 

The Beekman Greenhouse 414 

Colonel Smith's House 415 

Richard Riker's House 422 

Atlantic Garden, No. 9 Broadway 427 

The Gracie House 432 

Hell Gate Ferry 437 

Monument to Thomas Addis Emmet 441 

I and 3 Broadway in 1828 443 

A Dutch House 446 

View from Mount Morris 451 

Courtney's (Claremont) from Harlem Tower 455 

Head over Window of the Walton House 458 

The Rotunda, City Hall Park 461 

McGowan's Pass in i860 468 

Works at McGowan's Pass, War of 18 12 470 

Bull's Head Tavern, on the Site of the Bowery Theatre .... 472 

Rose Street Sugar-house 473 

The Old Federal Hall before Alteration 4S1 

King's College 485 

The Federal Hall on Wall Street 491 

An Old Advertisement 494 

The Exchange, foot of Broad Street 499 

Old Bridge and Dock at the Whitehall Slip 505 

Broad Street and Exchange Place, about 1680 513 

Tomb of William Bradford, Trinity Church-yard 518 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



CHAPTER I 

SUGGESTIONS FKOM AN ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION — NEW YORK NEAR 
HALF A CENTURY AGO — A REMINISCENCE OF THE DAYS WHEN 
TRINITY CHURCH WAS NEW — PREACHERS AND LAYMEN OF A PAST 
GENERATION 

I AM not a very old boy, but already the events 
of years gone begin to stand out with a vividness 
which does not belong to these later days, and I find 
myself more than eager to recall them. 

In passing Trinity Church on a soft June morning 
of 1886, 1 found the services of Ascension Day in prog- 
ress, and this brought back the recollection of the part 
I had taken in the consecration services that were held 
there forty years ago that day. I was then one of the 
foundation scholars of Trinity School. This amply 
endowed academy held its sessions in a large building 
on Varick Street, near Canal, and numbered 150 pu- 
pils. Its rector was the Rev. William Morris, LL.D., 
a stalwart graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and a 
rigid disciplinarian. Solomon's rod in his hands meant 
something. On that eventful day he marshalled his 
pupils in the school, and then, placing himself at the 
I «. 



2 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

head in Oxford cap and resplendent silk gown, marched 
them down Broadway to the Globe Hotel, where the 
procession was formed. 

The boys led the van in the stately march to the 
church. Then followed theological students, vestry- 
men, and a long line of clergymen, ending with the 
Bishop of the diocese, Dr. Benjamin T. Onderdonk. 
At the chancel rail we stopped, opened ranks, and the 
rest of the procession passed up the broad centre aisle 
between our lines, reciting the grand psalm of conse- 
cration, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates!" Of the 
long service that followed I remember only the read- 
ing of the first lesson by Dr. Morris — the consecration 
prayer of Solomon's Temple — and at this lapse of 
time I can still hear his sonorous voice repeating its 
magnificent petitions. Dr. Hodges presided at the 
organ, and he had prepared for the occasion an ap- 
pare"htly interminable " Te Deum," which I had the 
pleasure of learning when I became a member of the 
choir. 

The consecration of Trinity Church was a great 
event in New York, and gave rise to no end of discus- 
sion. It had been darkly whispered in private circles 
that some of the parish clergy intended to " turn their 
backs upon the people," as they all do now, and the 
public were ready to protest against the innovation. 
Up to that time the chancel arrangements that existed 
in St. John's Chapel, where I usually attended church, 
had been the prevailing ecclesiastical fashion. A cir- 
cular chancel rail surrounded a wooden structure com- 
posed of a reading-desk below and pulpit above, and 
with a little square white wooden altar in front of the 
desk in which prayers were read. Into this desk each 



TRINITY CHURCH 



afternoon two clergymen, one arrayed in a surplice 
and the other in a black silk gown, would shut them- 
selves, carefully closing the door, apparently from the 
fear that one of them might fall asleep and tumble 
out. At the proper time the black -robed minister 
would go out and reappear in the pulpit, while his 
companion apparently enjoyed a nap. But in the 



4 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

new Trinity Church only the altar was to stand within 
the railing. The pulpit was to be outside and oppo- 
site to the prayer- desk. This was a change, indeed. 
But when it was understood that a brazen eagle was 
to support the Bible from which the lessons of the 
day were to be read, criticism took up the cudgels and 
went to work. Bishops and sectarian preachers, lay- 
men and professors, sought the columns of the news- 
papers to vent their opinions, and the liveliest kind of 
a controversy was waged for a while. It ended in a 
laugh, when a bogus letter from Bishop Chase of Illi- 
nois was published, in which he was made to say that 
he knew nothing of the merits of that particular •eagle, 
but if they would fill his pockets with good golden 
American eagles for the benefit of Jubilee College, he 
would be content to drop all controversy. 

As the son of a clergyman it was my good -fortune 
to know all the eminent clergymen of that day — at 
least, to know them as an observant boy does. Our 
family were ardent supporters of Bishop Onderdonk 
through all his troubles: he had a patriarchal way with 
us children which seemed to leave a benediction be- 
hind him. Dr. Berrian, rector of Trinity Parish, was 
personally all kindness, but I thought him the poorest 
preacher I was compelled to hear. It was said of the 
good old man that when a country clergyman, half 
starved on a salary of $500, came to him and asked 
his influence to get him another charge, he remarked, 
" I do not see why you young clergymen want to 
change so often. Why, I have been in Trinity Church 
forty years, and never have thought of leaving." A 
poor preacher, he was a fine executive officer. His 
assistants were courtly Dr. Wainwright, who had the 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



famous newspaper con- 
troversy with Presby- 
terian Dr. Potts on the 
text, "A Church with- 
out a bishop, a State 
without a king;" Dr. 
Higbee, an eloquent 
Southerner, scholarly 
Dr.Ogilby,and Dr. Ho- 
bart, son of a former 
bishop of New York. 
Dr. Higbee was the 
favorite in the pulpit, 




TRINITY CHURCH 
[The second edifice, erected in 1788] 



and divided his preaching laurels with Dr. Tyng, who 
had recently come to old St. George's, in Beekman 
Street, to succeed Dr. Milnor, and Dr. Whitehouse of 
St. Thomas, afterwards called to be Bishop of Illinois. 



6 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

These clergymen were all present at the consecra- 
tion of Trinity Church ; and there were many other 
famous divines there also, including Dr. Thomas House 
Taylor, rector of the new Grace Church, at the head 
of Broadway ; Dr. Lyell, rector of Christ Church, in 
Anthony (now Worth) Street ; Dr. Haight, the able 
theologian who presided over All Saints', in Henry 
Street, and who subsequently decHned the mitre of 
Massachusetts ; Dr. Creighton, of Tarrytown,who might 
have succeeded Bishop Onderdonk, had he so desired ; 
Drs. Potter, Vinton, Cutler, Dufifie, etc. Chief among 
the bishops who were present was Bishop Doane, of 
New Jersey, who looked every inch the prelate in his 
robes, and who, in my judgment, was the finest orator 
in the Church. 

Speaking of pulpit orators recalls an anecdote which 
I caught as a boy from the lips of confidential clerical 
critics. At one time Drs. Onderdonk, Wainwright, 
and Schroeder were the three chief preachers in Trin- 
ity Parish, and a witty layman undertook to give the 
style of the dogmatic Onderdonk, flowery Schroeder, 
and courtly Wainwright, as exemplified in brief ser- 
mons on the text " Two beans and two beans make 
four beans," somewhat as follows : Dr. Onderdonk 
loquitur: "The Church in her wisdom has decreed 
that if two beans be added unto two beans, the prod- 
uct shall be four beans ; and if any self-sufificient mor- 
tal shall presume to question this conclusion of the 
law and the prophets, together with the canons, let 
him be anathema." Dr. Schroeder, after enunciating 
his text, was supposed to wake at sunrise, wander into 
the dewy fields, and pluck one pearly bean after an- 
other, and finally go into ecstasies over the quartet of 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 7 

shining beauties which he held in his hand. But the 
point of the satire was reached in Dr. Wainwright's 
case, who was made to say : " It has generally been 
conceded, and nowhere that I know of denied, that if 
two beans be added unto two beans, their product 
shall be four beans. But if there be in this intelligent 
and enlightened audience any who may venture to 
have conscientious doubts upon the subject, far be it 
from me, my brethren, to interfere with such a per- 
son's honest convictions." 

Dr. Wainwright was a cold, didactic preacher in his 
parish pulpit, but when elected bishop he astonished 
everybody by warming up into an earnest evangelist, 
and he died universally regretted. Bishop Onderdonk 
passed away under a cloud which had hung over him 
for many years, and whose gloom was never dissipated. 
At one time Dr. Schroeder was the favorite preacher 
of the city, and it was said of him that if you wanted 
to know where Schroeder preached on a Sunday, you 
had only to follow the crowd. But his fame was eva- 
nescent, and when he resigned in a pet he was aston- 
ished to find that his resignation was accepted by the 
vestry of Trinity, and was still more astonished to find 
himself a failure when he attempted to set up a church 
of his own. The building he reared faces Lafayette 
Place on Eighth Street ; afterwards it was for some 
time occupied by St. Ann's (Roman Catholic) con- 
gregation, and has recently proved a failure as a 
theatre. 

Forty years ago the vestrymen of Trinity Parish 
were a famous race of men. Philip Hone, the most 
courtly Mayor that New York ever had, was one of 
them. Major-general Dix, Cyrus Curtiss, John J. 



8 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

Cisco, Major Jonathan Lawrence, of the Revolutionary 
Army, and other men of note were of the number. 
Our seat in St, John's Chapel was two pews behind 
General Dix, and I used to see the present rector of 
Trinity Parish there — a slender, spectacled youth of 
severely studious aspect, whom I never remember to 
have seen smiling except when a strange minister in 
the reading-desk fell sound asleep and failed to be 
awakened by the retiring congregation. The families 
of Gen. Alexander Hamilton and Gen. Philip Schuyler 
were also attendants, as well as those of Dr. Hun- 
ter, General Morton, Philip Lydig, Dr. Green, Rob- 
ert Hyslop, Oscar Smedberg, Lewis Delafield, and 
Elias G. Drake. They have beautified the chancel 
end of St. John's Chapel since those days, but they 
have not improved much on the contents of the 
pews. 

The ecclesiastical chronicle of Trinity Church in 
1846 would be incomplete without mention of David 
Lyon, the stalwart sexton, whose robust presence was 
a standing terror to the small but mischievous boys of 
the choir. David was an institution. Proud of the 
church building committed to his care, he grudged the 
hours he was compelled to spend away from it. His 
management of the consecration procession was a 
miracle of unostentatious energy. The clergy always 
treated him as a friend, and he deserved their confi- 
dence. In after-years I gratified a laudable ambition 
by bestowing half a dollar on David for permitting me 
with a friend to mount up the steeple. 

The New York of forty years ago was a different 
community from what it is now. When Dr. James 
Milnor, rector of St. George's, in Beekman Street, died, 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 9 

the city newspapers turned their column rules and 
went into mourning. The dead preacher had resigned 
his seat in Congress to enter the ministry. The Cou- 
rier and Enquirer published the controversial letters 
between Dr. Potts and Dr. Wainwright, and made a 
great sensation out of it. The reason for this neigh- 
borly state of affairs was that the city had then devel- 
oped only the rudiments of its present glory. People 
of wealth still clustered about the Battery and Bowl- 
ing Green, or built solid up-town homes of brick on 
Bond, Bleecker, and Great Jcaes streets, or facing 
Washington Square. The rector of Trinity kept open 
house with his wife and three handsome daughters at 
No. 50 Varick Street, opposite St. John's Park, which 
was then the most aristocratic quarter of the city. 
Dr. Wainwright lived in Hubert Street and Dr. Hig- 
bee in Chambers Street. The residence of Bishop 
Onderdonk was in Franklin Street, between Church 
Street and West Broadway. Trinity, St. Paul's, and 
St. John's had large and fashionable congregations, 
who lived within walking distance of the churches, 
and the Battery had a highly select circle of fre- 
quenters, and was the starting-point of many a love- 
match among Knickerbocker circles. Fourteenth 
Street was far up-town. The site of the Fifth Avenue 
Hotel was vacant lots roughly fenced in with boards. 
Stages crept along leisurely every hour to the pleasant 
rural hamlets of Yorkville, Harlem, Bloomingdale, and 
Manhattanville ; and, strange as it may seem, honesty 
was so much the rule that people who rode in Kipp 
and Brown's stages were allowed to pay their fare at 
the end of the ride, instead of being compelled to 
stand and deliver at the start. 



lO A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



CHAPTER II 

AN OBLITERATED PARK— SOME OLD CHURCHES — DEPARTED GLORIES 
OF VARICK AND LAIGHT STREETS — MR. GREENOUGH'S SCHOOL — 
RILEY'S museum hotel — THE "TROOP A" OF THE " FORTIES" 

At the time when the present century was born a 
wide sandy beach extended from the foot of Duane 
Street to the mouth of the estuary by which the brook 
that ran from the Collect Pond, at the present site of 
the Tombs, through Canal Street, issued to the Hud- 
son River. The adjacent land, sandy for the most part 
and barren, was laid out in streets and dotted here and 
there with the comfortable homes of solid burghers. 
The infant city had just recovered from the untoward 
effects of its long occupation by the British troops and 
the removal of the seat of Government, and, mindful 
of this progress. Trinity Church began, about ninety 
years ago, the erection of the handsome and commodi- 
ous church known as St. John's Chapel, located on 
Varick Street — so named after one of the early Mayors, 
who was also an officer in the Revolutionary Army. 
The chapel was so large and situated so far up-town 
that the neighbors all wondered when the time would 
come that a congregation would be found to fill its 
pews. 

In front of the chapel a wide beach of sand, unshaded 
by a tree, stretched down to the river. In order to 
attract settlers to the neighborhood, the vestry of 
Trinity Parish, to which most of the adjacent land be- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK II 

longed, determined to lay out a large square directly 
in front of the chapel as a private park, for the benefit 
of those who should build homes fronting upon it. 
Trees were planted, broad gravelled walks laid out, 
flower-beds and vases of shrubbery set at intervals, a 
greensward was cultivated, and the wilderness was 
made to blossom as the rose. Thus was St. John's 
Park born. It was a thing of beauty in its day. " Old 
Cisco," who had been a slave in the family of that 
name, was made its keeper, and warned to keep a sharp 
eye upon the boys of the period. The park became a 
paradise for birds ; robins and wrens and bluebirds 
abounded, and the Baltimore oriole hung its nest on 
the branches of the sycamores. 

The loveliness of St. John's Park soon attracted 
many of the best citizens of the young metropolis to 
its vicinity. They reared substantial houses of brick, 
plain on the outside, but luxuriously furnished within, 
and in the gardens they built cisterns and sank wells. 
The city had no water-works, but at every convenient 
corner they dug and found water, and erected wooden 
pumps. There was wealth enough on the square to 
pay for all these improvements, and most of the names 
of the householders had been known in colonial days. 
The families of Alexander Hamilton, General Schuyler, 
and General Morton were among them, as were also 
the Aymars, Drakes, Lydigs, Coits, Lords, Delafields. 
Randolphs, and Hunters. They owned their houses, 
and had their own keys to the massive gates of the 
park, from which all outsiders were rigorously excluded. 
The neighborhood formed an exclusive coterie, into 
which parvenu wealth could find no passport of ad- 
mission. 



12 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

There was no trouble now to gather a congregation 
that filled St. John's Chapel. Indeed, there arose a 
demand for other churches in the neighborhood. The 
Presbyterians erected a house of worship on Laight 
Street, at the corner of Varick, facing the park, and 
here for for a number of years the Rev. Dr. Samuel 
H. Cox ministered. He was the inveterate foe of 
slavery, and when the abolition troubles began and 
developed into riots that threatened life and proper- 
ty, the congregation took alarm, Dr. Cox resigned his 
charge, and they called as their pastor the Rev. Flavel 
S. Mines, a Virginian, who a few years subsequently 
became an Episcopal clergyman, and was followed 
into the church by so many of his congregation as 
practically to end its existence. Both of Dr. Cox's 
sons became Episcopal clergymen also, and one of 
them is now Bishop of Buffalo. Roe Lockwood, the 
publisher, Henry A. Coit, Daniel Lord, and Mr. Ay- 
mar, the great shipping merchant, were elders and 
pillars of the flock ; but the one of all others whom 
the children loved most was " Grandma " Bethune, 
mother of the distinguished divine of that name. In 
the closing years of her life she used to gather a class 
of forty or fifty children at her home every Sunday, 
and we were all eager to go and sit at the feet of the 
dear old lady. 

The late Charles F. Briggs, well known in journalism 
years ago, and the " Harry Franco " of the past genera- 
tion of novelists, used to attend Laight Street Church 
very often, and in the congregation were a bevy of his 
pretty cousins, daughters of a famous ship-owner of 
that day — one of the Marshalls. It was long before 
the dawn of aesthetic taste ; art was looked upon in 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 1 5 

solid commercial circles as the luxury of idle hours, 
and the profession of artist as a mere excuse for lazi- 
ness. No merchant would have dreamed of allowing 
his daughter to marry "a painter." Yet a young art- 
ist had dared to avow his love to the prettiest of the 
above-named bevy of young girls, and she had boldly 
ventured to say that she loved him in return and in- 
tended to marry him. Society was shocked. It mat- 
tered not that the young man had talent (and, indeed, 
eventually he made a name for himself that all de- 
lighted to honor) ; society drew the line at artists, and 
did not recognize them as eligible. One day, as Mr. 
Briggs entered the house, the entire chorus of its 
women threw^ themselves upon him and begged him 
to remonstrate with Emily and save the family honor. 
" The family honor," said Briggs, with the gruffness he 
assumed on such occasions, and that was only relieved 
by a telltale twinkle of the eye ; , 
" what has Emily been doing 
now?" " Doing!" shrieked the 
chorus, " she's going to disgrace 
us all by marrying an artist." 
" Pooh !" came the quick reply, 
" he isn't enough of an artist to 
make it anything of a disgrace.'' 
The w^omen folk were indignant 

at his apparent indifference, but when the sibylline 
utterance of Briggs was carried to the father, he was 
so amused by it that he withdrew his opposition to 
the marriage. 

Other churches were scattered about in the vicinity 
of the park. There were Methodist houses of worship 
in Duane and Vestry Streets ; a Dutch Reformed 




THE FRENXH CHfRCH IN PINH 
STREET 



l6 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

church in FrankHn Street ; a Presbyterian church in 
Canal Street, and the portly white marble edifice of 
the old Huguenot Congr^ation that had emigrated 
from Pine Street to the corner of Church and Frank- 
lin^ and had united its destinies with the Episcopalians. 
These churches have either disappeared or have fol- 
lowed the exodus of the church-going population up- 
town. They were practically put hors de combat when 
St. John's Park was obliterated from the city map. It 
was a cruel act. In my eyes it seemed an outrage 
wholly unjustifiable. The only public execution I 
ever witnessed was the slaying of those great trees 
under which my sisters and I had played, and I would 
as soon have seen so many men beheaded. A fatal 
fascination drew me to the spot. I did not want to 
go, but could not help going out of my way to pass it 
by. The axes were busy with the hearts of the giants 
I had loved, and the iron-handed carts went crashing 
over the flower-beds, leaving a trail of death. The 
trees lay prone over the ploughed gravel-walks, and a 
few little birds were screaming over their tops, bewail- 
ing the destruction of their nests. It was horrible. 
As I looked upon the scene I knew how people must 
feel when an army passed over their homes, leaving 
desolation in its wake. It boots not to ask who was 
at fault for blotting out this oasis. There are some 
who do not want to know, because they do not want 
to withhold forgiveness from the barbarians. If the 
pretty little garden, fragrant with so many memories 
of old loves and domestic joys, had given place to a 
block of homes, it would not have been so bad ; but 
to rear in its place a coarse pile of bricks for use as a 
freight depot, to make it a centre of ceaseless noise 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK IJ 

and riot, was to create in an earthly paradise the 
abomination of desolation. 

Many years ago, previous to the outbreak of the 
war with Mexico, Jeremiah J. Greenough had a small 
select school at 82 Franklin Street, and when a very 
small boy I attended it. Among the pupils were Col. 
H. S. Olcott, the American apostle of Buddhism; 
George De Forest Lord, Bowie Dash, and Dr. George 
Suckley, who was chief surgeon of Gen. Benjamin F. 
Butler's army corps. Mr. Greenough wielded the ruler 
and rattan with considerable force and persistency, but 
he was more than rivalled by Dr. Morris, of Trinity 
School, and Mr. William Forrest, who had a large acad- 
emy for boys on Franklin Street, west of Church. It 
was always a point of dispute between the pupils of 
these latter institutions as to whether " Billy " Forrest 
or "old Morris" could whip the most boys in a day. 
There are those who still lament the disappearance of 
the good old race of school-masters. Who knew them 
in the flesh fail to join in the lamentation. 

On our way to and from Mr. Greenough's modest 
temple of literature we used to pass a structure that 
had far more interest for us than the halls of Congress, 
or of the Montezumas either. It occupied the west 
corner of West Broadway and Franklin Street, and 
was widely known to fame as Riley's Fifth Ward 
Museum Hotel. Its interior was the prototype of the 
modern bric-a-brac " saloon," with its paintings from 
the Paris Salon, except that there was nothing on the 
walls or in the glass cases which stood on all sides of 
the main room, which was reached by an ample flight 
of stairs and were always open to inspection, that a 
child might not look at and inquire about. That was 
2. 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



a wonderful room indeed. It held original portraits 
of great statesmen and warriors, and displayed their 
swords and portions of their uniforms. Among its 




RILEY S FIFTH WARD HOTEL 



curiosities were a two-headed calf eloquently stuffed, 
the pig that butted a man off the bridge, one of the 
Hawaiian clubs that dashed out the brains of Captain 
Cook, Tecumseh's rifle, a pipe that General Jackson 
had smoked, and a large number of genuine relics of 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



19 




STATUE OF THE EARL OF 
CHATHAM 



the colonial days of New York. 
Riley was a connoisseur in relics, 
and had good reason to congratu- 
late himself on his collection. He 
liked to have appreciative visitors, 
and his hotel was a model of re- 
spectability. 

Outside of the basement door 
on Franklin Street, surrounded by 
a little iron railing through which 
some grasses struggled feebly for 
existence, stood a relic of the past 
which I could never bear to pass 
without reading the inscription on 
it once again. It had once been 
a marble statue of William Pitt, 
Earl of Chatham, placed by the 
grateful people of New York on the steps of the Royal 
Exchange ten years before the war for independence 
broke out, and dashed down and mutilated by the 
British soldiery in revenge for the destruction of the 
statue of King George on the Bowling Green. The 
head and one arm of the statue were broken off at the 
time, and the torso was wheeled away to the corpora- 
tion yard, where it lay for a quarter of a century 
among the rubbish, until Mr. Riley disentombed it. 
After his death the Historical Society got hold of the 
statue, and retain it in their collection. It was an un- 
fortunate coincidence for the Earl of Chatham that 
he incurred the enmity of the British soldiers in New 
York in 1776 and of the New York Aldermen of 1886. 
The latter signalized their displeasure by exchanging 
the name Chatham. Street, which had an historical 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



and patriotic meaning, for Park Row, which is a mis- 
nomer in its application to a street lying entirely be- 
yond the City Hall Park. But in these busy days of 
railroad franchises, it is too much to expect that an 
alderman would devote any of his time to the study 
of history. 

In the early part of the century a round brick fort, 
fashioned after the style of Fort Lafayette, was erected 
at the foot of Hubert Street, out in the river, and it 
stood there during the war of 1812 and for some years 
afterwards as an alleged tower of defence against for- 
eign foes. No enemy's foot, however, has pressed the 
banks of the Hudson for a century, and this fort and 

a similar one that 
once stood at the 
foot of Ganse- 
voort Street gave 
way before the 
rapid march of 
commerce. The 
latter was a des- 
olate ruin forty 
years ago, and 
the school - boys 
of the Fifth Ward 
used to make Saturday pilgrimages there and play fa- 
mous games of the period among its ruins. " How 
many miles to Babylon ?" was the last cry heard there 
before its walls were torn down and carted away. 

But there was another demonstration in the way of 
war which the boys always delighted to witness, of 
which St. John's Park was a favorite centre. On 
training days the citizen soldiery made their appear- 



1%-2z;^^iii»^ 







FORT FOOT OF HUBERT STREET 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 21 

ance in their Sunday clothes, ckistering gloomily 
around the official who drilled them with a small bam- 
boo cane, and swore furiously when they marched, as 
they usually did, all out of shape. They were an un- 
tiring source of amusement to the street urchins, who 
guyed them unmercifully. But the militia — of whom, 
as quaint John Phoenix remarked, it might be truly 
said that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like 
one of these — excited unbounded and genuine admira- 
tion, whether attired in the uniform of Austria, France, 
or Italy. The Highlanders, whom old Captain Man- 
son, a hero of the late war, commanded, generally car- 
ried most of the boys in their train. The plaids and 
plumes took the eye, and the great shaggy hats carried 
an impression of terror with them that made every 
man look every inch a soldier. Yet of all the militia- 
men of that time, " Dandy " Marx's hussars most 
pleased my boyish eye. Young Marx — Henry Carroll 
— was the Beau Brummel of his generation, and his 
sisters set the fashions to the ladies. They were an 
impressive sight as they walked down Broadway from 
their up-town house on that thoroughfare, near Prince 
Street, in the afternoons — the handsome and elegantly 
attired sisters leading their greyhounds by a blue rib- 
bon, and escorted by their equally handsome brother 
in a costume that was always faultless. The sisters 
were devoted to their brother, and none of the three 
ever married. Harry died years ago, and was buried 
in Greenwood. The sisters lived many years, and be- 
came religious devotees in their old age, bequeathing 
their money in each case to a clergyman — and a law- 
suit. When the brother started his company of hus- 
sars all the gilded youth of the city were eager to be 



22 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

enrolled, and an enormous amount of wealth was cov- 
ered by their brilliant jackets. They were a dashing 
squad, but grew tired of the sport after a while and 
disbanded. " Troop A" will find it difificult to outshine 
" Dandy " Marx's men. 

At the foot of Canal Street a little brook from the 
Lispenard meadows joined the larger tributary from 
the Collect Pond. A short distance above, at the foot 
of Houston Street, once stretched a great swamp, 
through which the Minetta brook (which has given its 
name to a street, a " lane," and a " place ") made a tiny 
thread of silver. The Minetta was a famous stream 
for trout. The fishermen angling patiently for impos- 
sible bass at the ends of our wharves would hardly be- 
lieve the fact, but it is perfectly credible. The brooks 
and ponds of the Island of Manhattan were always 
famous for their fish. 




THE JERSEY PRISON SHIP 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



23 



CHAPTER III 

COLUMBIA COLLEGE AS IT WAS — A COMMENCEMENT FORTY YEARS 
AGO — RIOTS THAT COST LIFE — LANDMARKS OF CHELSEA — AN EC- 
CLESIASTICAL ROMANCE 







Pausing for a moment under the trees of the old 
Theological Seminary, in ancient Chelsea village, and 
marking the march of improvement in the construc- 
tion of the great 
" quad," with its 
noble Chapel of 
the Good Shep- 
herd, I am re- 
minded that 
there is one 
green spot back 
in my path to 
which I have not 
yet paid my re- 
spects. From the 
door of the old 
Cushman home- 
stead, opposite 

the east end of the Seminary grounds, comes one 
of my old school-mates of that name. A freak of 
memory recalls him instantaneously in silken gown, in 
the old chapel of Columbia College. He was slender 
then and rosy ; now he is more or less gray and robust. 
His student gown would be a miserable misfit to-day. 




THE GENERAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 



24 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

In the old programmes of public processions the 
Faculty and students of Columbia College were al- 
ways awarded a place of honor. Omnibuses were as- 
signed for their conveyance, and they were expected 
to embark in these vehicles in their silken robes. As 
a very small boy, I used to stand on the sidewalk and 
look upon these superior beings with envy, wondering 
if I ever should arrive at the dignity of being exalted 
to an ofificial omnibus. At this distance of time I have 
a stray suspicion that the students who rode in the 
processions were chiefly Freshmen. Later, it was my 
delight to attend the commencements and semi -an- 
nuals, and the speakers had always a deeply interested 
audience of one at least. 

Columbia College occupied an unbroken block be- 
tween Barclay and Murray streets and Church Street 
and College Place. Park Place went only to Church 
Street, and the street from College Place to the river 
was called Robinson Street. The buildings were not 
imposing, but there was a scholastic air about the 
quadrangle which did not fail to inspire awe. Two 
Revolutionary cannon partly sunk in the ground 
guarded the gate-way ; there was a legend to the ef- 
fect that they had been captured from the British by 
Alexander Hamilton, once a student of the college — 
King's College, as it was in his day. It had been my 
ambition to be graduated at this institution, but fate 
sent me to an Eastern college. However, I kept up 
my acquaintance with "the boys," and visited them 
on all possible occasions. Here it was that my first 
silk hat met an untimely fate. I had just purchased 
it, and with its added dignity entered the side gate 
impressively, when a well-directed kick from the stout 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



25 



boot of stout Cutler C. McAllister sent a foot-ball high 
in air and it came down with a crash directly upon my 
new tile. A second visit to the hatter was imperative, 
and I tried to smile, but I never admired the game of 
foot-ball afterwards. 

In those days President King was the academical 




COLUMBIA COLLEGE IN 1850 



head of Columbia, but Professor Anthon, " Old Bull " 
Anthon, as the students irreverently designated him, 
was a bigger man than all the -rest of the Faculty com- 
bined. It used to be said of him that he ate a boy 
for breakfast every morning, so severe was his disci- 
pline in the grammar-school over which he also pre- 
sided. In the college class-room his powers of sar- 
casm made him the terror of the careless or lazy 
student. His assistant, Mr. Drislcr, had then won no 



26 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

special laurels. Venerable Professor McVickar was a 
favorite with everybody, a gentle, kindly man, whose 
erudition was proverbial, and of whose kindliness the 
students were prone to take advantage, even though 
it were with pangs of penitence. As a boy I had met 
him often, and been drawn towards him, but the other 
members of the Faculty inspired me with unspeak- 
able awe. 

I remember attending a commencement of Columbia 
College that was held in the Episcopal Church of the 
Crucifixion on Eighth Street, between Broadway and 
Fourth Avenue. It was soon after the Mexican War 
had closed that I attended the commencement at this 
church, and General Scott, tall and soldierly, was a 
conspicuous figure on the platform. One of the 
speakers, a son of Dr. Schroeder, rector of the church, 
turned and addressed the general, who bowed in a 
dignified manner to the plaudits of the audience. But 
the speaker who most challenged my admiration that 
day was " Billy " Armitage, whose popularity with his 
classmates seemed to be unbounded. He was sub- 
sequently Bishop of Wisconsin, and died in 1873, be- 
fore he had reached the prime of life. 
■ The men of that epoch were my seniors. A few 
years only intervened between us, but they made a 
great gulf in those days. Later I knew all the boys. 
Among these were John H. Anthon, afterwards the 
eloquent leader of the Apollo Hall Democracy, " Jack " 
Byron, Cutler C. McAllister, Dr. Thurston, Samuel F. 
Barger, the railway financier. Col. H. S. Olcott, Gen. 
Stewart' L. Woodford, since Lieutenant-governor and 
Congressman ; Bob Chisholm, afterwards a Confeder- 
ate officer ; a delegation from the neighborhood of 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



St. John's Park, consisting of the Smedbergs, Hamil- 
tons, Lydigs, Hyslops, and Drakes ; George C. Pen- 
nell, who lived in Chambers Street, and was popularly 
reputed to have weighed two hundred pounds when 
he was born (he had a voice to match, and when he 
spoke' his great piece " Sampson " he almost literally 
brought down the house) ; a lot of quiet students who 
afterwards became parsons, J. S. B. Hodges, Brewer, 
Dickinson, etc. Why lengthen out the roster.' There 
is another set of college buildings now, with new 
brands of professors, and a thousand catalogued stu- 
dents. We, who remember old Columbia College in 
the days when a literary atmosphere still lingered 
about Park Place, and a stray milliner employed a 
half-dozen pretty apprentices in her fashionable estab- 
lishment on that thoroughfare, are gray-headed and 
have nearly finished our story. Moritiiri vos saluta- 
inus ! 

The University of New York still keeps its location 
on Washington Square. Its walls recall one of the 
early riots of the city, caused by an uprising of work- 
ing-men against the use of stone cut by State Prison 
convicts in the construction of the building. The 
military were called out, but there was no bloodshed. 
In my undergraduate days there was a feeling of jeal- 
ousy between the University and the Columbia Col- 
lege boys (I believe they all spoke of themselves as 
" men," by the way), and as the superiority of age was 
on the side of old Columbia, the college took airs 
upon itself accordingly. Theodore Frelinghuysen was 
Chancellor of the University then, if I remember, and 
his name, viewed socially and politically, was a tower 
of strength. I never pass the University building of 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



late years but I associate it with the " Cecil Dreeme " 
of Theodore Winthrop (poor fellow, the promise of 
his brilliant young life was dashed to pieces in the 
fight at Big Bethel), which has invested the structure 
with a fascinating interest. 

Remembrance of the working-men's riot at the Uni- 
versity induces me to step aside and visit the scene of 
the Astor Place riot. That was tragedy in dead ear- 
nest. A school-boy at the time, I remember the ex- 
citement that pervaded all classes as to the relative 
claims of Forrest and Macready. As a full-blooded 
American, I naturally stood up for home talent, and 
helped make life unpleasant for a youthful Londoner 
in my class at school. The sensation made by the 
bloodshed in Astor Place was like the opening of war 
at our doors. With a school-boy's curiosity, I was at 
the scene early the next morning, and sought out with 
eager interest some little dingy spots of red that were 
pointed out to sight-seers, and the places on the north- 
ern wall of the big house at the corner of Lafayette 
Place which had been chipped out by the bullets of 
the soldiery. It was not thought safe for my sisters 
to go to Mme. Okill's school at the corner of Clinton 
Place and Mercer Street that day, and I had the glory 
of having visited the seat of war all to myself. The 
riot left one unanswered conundrum : Who gave the 
order to fire? No one desired to claim the honor of 
issuing the command, and the officers of the militia 
finally settled down to the conviction that the bruised 
and battered soldiery began the fire themselves. The 
locality was then a fashionable centre ; the slums in- 
vaded it, and left their mark upon it in blood. 

But to return to Chelsea. London Terrace was a 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 29 

charming place of residence forty years ago, and still 
retains much of its old-time beauty. A few years later 
the solid men of the lower wards on the west side 
began building in the upper section of Chelsea, be- 
tween Eighth and Ninth avenues and Twenty-seventh 
and Thirtieth streets, and this locality to this day re- 
tains an air of eminent respectability, and its ample 
rear gardens are a ceaseless source of comfort to the 
residents. West of this settlement the city is still 
unattractive. It was a wild place when I was a boy, 
and the maintenance of the old Hudson River Rail- 
road depot there still retards public and private im- 
provements. But the river front is picturesque, and 
across the stream rise the heights of Hoboken, crowned 
by the Passionist monastery and church. The heights 
as they were, where nature left them covered with for- 
est trees, were still prettier, but one can be grateful 
that man cannot mar the landscape utterly. 

Two landmarks of old Chelsea remain unchanged. 
At the corner of Twenty-eighth Street and Ninth Ave- 
nue stands the old Church of the Holy Apostles — 
that is, it is old comparatively, though the painters 
have attired it in a new dress of red with brown 
trimmings. A generation ago the Rev. Dr. R. S. 
Howland was the rector, and the late Dr. George J. 
Geer was his assistant. They were excellent men, 
both of them, and Dr. Geer was always good com- 
pany. One of my uncles was a vestryman of the 
church, and he told me the storj of its foundation. A 
young man, son of a great ship-builder, determined to 
study for the ministry of the Episcopal Church, though 
his father was not of that faith. The son persisted, 
and the father made his will, cutting off the disobe- 



30 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

dient son with the proverbial shilHng. Ordained and 
in the ministry, but cut ofi from the wealth he should 
have inherited, the son kept on his way unmoved — 
but not unwatched by the father. Touched by his 
consistent conduct, the father made a new will, leaving 
to the once disinherited boy his entire possessions. 
Then the old man died. The son divided the prop- 
erty equally among the heirs, and out of his own share 
built the Church of the Holy Apostles as a thank-offer- 
ing. A good lesson for a church-spire to teach. 

Dr. Geer was always jolly, and dearly loved a good 
joke. The last time I saw him he told me how one 
day, some years before, as his sexton helped him to 
put on his surplice, he noticed that the man had on a 
most doleful countenance, and he asked him what was 
the matter. " Oh, Mr. Geer," said the sexton, " I wish 
we might have some Gospel preaching here. This 
morning the Methodist preacher at the Chelsea Church 
is going to improve the flood, and to-night he will im- 
prove the hanging. Can't you do it, too .''" There had 
been an execution at the Tombs and a notable rise in 
the Hudson that week — hence the outburst of ecstasy. 

The sturdy gray granite tower of old St. Peter's 
Church also shows no mark of the flight of years. On 
the contrary, I observe as I pass it with a tourist's eye 
that it has set itself off with certain modern furbelows 
in the shape of turreted wooden porticos at the door- 
ways, as pardonable a vanity as the fresh violet rib- 
bons with which my grandmother was wont to deco- 
rate her best Sunday cap. " It doesn't signify, Felix," 
she would say, " but I do like to see old folks spruce 
themselves up, and somehow I always want to look 
my best, even to my grandson." 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 3I 

There is a pathetic strain of association with the 
old church, which goes back to a day when a young 
student of divinity made more noise in the American 
ecclesiastical world than the whole bench of bishops. 
It was at the time when Puseyism, so called, was on 
everybody's tongue, and old-fashioned high and dry 
churchmen considered it a mortal sin for an officiating 
clergyman to " turn his back upon the congregation." 
On the day when Arthur Carey was to be ordained to 
the ministry, Drs. Smith and Anthon, rectors of St. 
Peter's and St. Mark's churches, respectively, stood 
up to object to proceeding with the service. Thence 
arose the wildest kind of an ecclesiastical circus. It 
was the beginning of a bitter persecution of the late 
Bishop Onderdonk, who ordained Mr. Carey, and for 
a while it divided clergy and people into warring fac- 
tions, and made the diocesan conventions in old St. 
John's Chapel a species of theological bear-garden. 
Poor Carey! He had a short, sad life. A few months 
afterwards he died at sea, and when a kindly Presby- 
terian clergyman, who was somewhat suspicious of all 
ritualists, and knew of Mr. Carey only through the 
religious press, stood at his bedside and asked him if 
he placed all his reliance on his Saviour in that hour, 
the dying youth turned a reproachful look upon him 
and replied, " Of course I do." The clergyman said 
afterwards that he had never witnessed a more peace- 
ful and edifying death, and bore high testimony to 
Arthur Carey's faith. It was the echo of this terrific 
ecclesiastical storm, with its wild warrings of good men 
and its undercurrent of pathos, that seemed to sweep 
around the turrets of old St. Peter's as I passed by. 

Not far from the church, and occupying the entire 



32 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



block between Twenty-second and Twenty-third streets 
and Eighth and Ninth avenues, stood, a generation ago, 
the picturesque home of Clement C. Moore. It had 
been the country-seat of his father, the second Bishop 
of New York, and the grading of the streets had left 
the entire block elevated twelve or fifteen feet above 
the sidewalk. The cosiest of suburban homes, it was 




THE MOORE HOUSE 



hidden by great oaks and elms, and outsiders had only 
glimpses of the loveliness of its surroundings. Here 
lived the kindliest of scholars, the most learned of col- 
lege professors, the most assiduous of bookworms, a 
writer whose published works were held in highest 
reverence by the learned men of his day. But he is 
known to posterity by none of these sound claims to 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



33 



reputation. A little rhyme, dashed off under this 
roof, when the trees were bare of leaves and the rob- 
ins had departed, and written solely for the pleasure 
of his grandchildren, has made the name of Clement 
C. Moore a household word wherever the English 
tongue is spoken. Here he wrote the nursery rhyme 
that all childhood has since learned : " 'Twas the 
Night Before Christmas ;" and by this unsuspected 
little pathway he mounted up to fame. 

It is a pity that green fields and bright gardens have 
to give place to bricks and mortar and bluestone pave- 
ments ; and old Chelsea, in its prime,. was a very ham-^ 
let of roses and romance. But, after all, as my grand- 
mother would say, "It doesn't signify." 





OLD FIRE BUCKET 




34 A TOUK AROUND NEW YORK 



CHAPTER IV 

TO ALBANY BY SLOOP — AN INCIDENT OF STEAMBOAT COMPETITION — 
THE ROMANCE OF A CONVICT — GENESIS OF FASHIONABLE PARKS 
— THE "PROFESSORSHIP OF NEW YORK" 

" That was a terrible week." 

It is my grandmother who is speaking. The old 
lady sits by the open window in a pleasant little cot- 
tage in Chelsea. Her best cap adorns her white hair, 
and the vanity of violet ribbons further sets it off. A 
lithe and beautiful cat is curled up cosily at her feet ; 
and on the sofa, curled up in much the same fashion, 
is the hostess of my grandmother, the daughter of Dr. 
Cuthbert, who for half a century had a drug-store on 
Grand Street, half-way between Broadway and the 
Bowery. 

" It doesn't signify," says my grandmother, falling 
gently into one of her favorite modes of expression, 
" but I shall never forget that week on the Albany 
schooner. We had a horrible storm in the Highlands, 
and we were all sea-sick and nearly wrecked ; and then 
we were becalmed above Poughkeepsie for two days, 
and it took us just a week to make the voyage. I de- 
clare, I never see a schooner but it gives me a touch of 
sea-sickness. I wished afterwards," she added, inno- 
cently, " that we had got out and walked. And just 
to think that now the steamboats advertise to carry 
you to Albany for a shilling !" 

She has told me often of her voyage up the Hud- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 35 

son, when the country was young. The sloop packet 
started from a wharf near the Battery. It sailed past 
the blooming gardens of Greenwich Village ; by the 
frowning walls of the State prison at the foot of Amos 
Street ; beyond the green fields that stretched out 
until the pretty little hamlet of Chelsea was reached, 
where the gray turrets of the Episcopal Seminary 
were at that time going up ; and then swept by an 
unbroken succession of rural villas and manors up to 
the heights named in honor of Fort Washington, and 
thence looked back upon historic King's Bridge, the 




KING S BRIDGE 



seething waters of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and the 
ample possessions of the Phillipse family and the Van 
Cortlandts. 

That was a wonderfully exciting time when the rival 
steamboats advertised to carry passengers to Albany 
for a shilling, and an army of " runners " pervaded the 
streets and thronged the wharves, pulling and hauling 
at the persons and baggage of the unhappy victims. 
Racing was rife on the river, and there was always a 
tinge of excitement in the voyage, through the proba- 
bility of a boiler explosion or a fire. The wreck of the 
Swallow and the burning of the Henry Clay are among 



36 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

the memories of a day in which the names of the steam 
chppers of the Hudson (some of which still drag flo- 
tillas of canal-boats through the waters on which they 
once walked as queens) were as well known as the pres- 
ent favorites of the race-tracks. 

There was a queer genius in my regiment named 
Bickford. His hair was red, and his stride was un- 
gainly, but he would have been able to take care of 
himself either at the Court of St. James's or on a desert 
island. In search of his fortune, he drifted to New 
York at the time when the rivalry between steamboats 
was at its height. Bundle in hand, he suffered himself 
to be dragged on one of the boats by a runner, where 
he took his bearings and laid out his campaign. When 
the supper-bell sounded he seated himself at the table 
and laid in a square meal. When the steward came 
for his money, Bickford said he had none and didn't 
know any was wanted ; that one fellow had offered to 
take him to Albany for a shilling, another for sixpence, 
and a third for nothing at all. So he had come along, 
and supposed he was to be taken care of for the pleas- 
ure of his company. The captain was summoned, and 
demanded to see the fool who was travelling free to 
Albany. Bickford's stolid assumption of ignorance 
was too much for the captain. " Never travelled be- 
fore ? Never saw a steamboat, eh ? Well, this is fun ; 
come right along." Bickford told the story in Libby 
Prison to a roomful of officers — he was then acting as 
my orderly — somewhat as follows : " The captain took 
me to the engine-room, and I was horrified at the 
sights and sounds there, of course. The engineer 
turned the steam and water on me, and I shrieked and 
they roared. I asked the curiousest questions I could 



38 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

think of ; asked them to light a candle and take me 
down-stairs into the kitchen, and up-stairs into the bed- 
rooms; and they laughed till they cried. Then the cap- 
tain introduced me to a cabin full of passengers as the 
biggest fool he had met yet. I never let on that I was 
anything but a fool, and I got a good bed that night, 
breakfast the next morning, and four or five dolliars 
from the passengers to help me on my way. Fool ! I 
wasn't half as big a fool as the captain, and they could 
squirt steam on me all night, as long as I was getting 
pay for it." 

Queer are the pranks that time plays with old build- 
ings. The State prison that once stood on Amos Street 
(West Tenth Street now) has been transformed into a 
brewery. Its white outside walls alone are unchanged, 
and serve to mark the locality ; but even these, of late 
years, have been allied to red brick wings and other im- 
provements in such a way as to take off much of their 
old-time bareness. The interior is all changed. The 
prison yard used to reach down to the river, and outside 
were sunny fields and a wide stretch of beach. Now, 
streets have been extended west of the prison site and 
far into the river, and buildings cover them, while be- 
yond the new river line the great iron steamships of 
modern commerce nestle against the wharves. It is 
half a century since the inmates of the old prison were 
transferred to Sing Sing ; and the city, excepting a few 
old people born in Greenwich Village or Chelsea, have 
forgotten all about the former home of the convict. 

I never pass by the old prison walls but I think 
of a little episode that had its scene there, which 
developed a great deal of human nature. A young 
man had committed forgery and had been sentenced to 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



39 



death. The preparations were all made for the execu- 
tion, which was to take place in Washington Square, 
and a large crowd had gathered, when news came that 
a reprieve had been granted at the last hour. There 
were many bitter expressions of disappointment from 




THE STATE PRISON 



the sight-seers, among whom was a boy who subse- 
quently told me the story. It appeared that some be- 
nevolent and active members of the Society of Friends 
had become interested in the criminal; and had secured 
the commutation of his sentence to imprisonment for 
life. Overjoyed at his escape from the gallows, the 
young man made himself a model prisoner, and was 
soon placed in charge of a shoe-shop, where he paraded 
up and down, rattan in hand, between the benches, and 
proved himself a terror to his fellow-convicts. Virtue 
has its reward. The kindly Quakers left no stone un- 
turned until they had secured his pardon, and then the 
devout convert was set up in a shoe-shop of his own, 
where he handled the "thee" and "thou" and the 
cash to perfection. At last he had become a man of 
consequence among the Quakers and a man of mark 
in the business community, and then he saw his op- 



40 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

portunity and seized it. One day he turned up miss- 
ing. He had converted all his assets into cash, had 
gathered in a golden harvest by forging the names of 
all his business friends, and had crowned his iniquity 
by eloping with the pretty Quaker daughter of the 
generous benefactor who had secured his release from 
the gallows. New York never saw him again. 

His career had not been without its thorns in the 
mean time. The shadow of a dangling noose sometimes 
came athwart the sunshine. One day he had been in 
a towering passion with one of his workmen because 
he had not finished a pair of shoes at the time he had 
promised. He told the man he had no right to break 
his promise and disappoint him. " Master," said the 
man, quietly, "you have disappointed me worse than 
that." " How did I, you rascal? When?" "When 
I waited a whole hour in the rain to see you hanged !" 

In the old Dutch colonial days the executions of 
criminals took place outside the Battery, on the beach. 
Under the English the scene was transferred to the 
Commons, the present City Hall Park. In the pres- 
ent century executions took place in the vicinity of 
Houston and Wooster streets, and then on the open 
ground now known as Washington Square. Criminals 
were buried under the gallows in all these places, and 
it is a curious fact that most of our smaller parks were 
not reserved as pleasure places, but for public use in 
the interment of paupers. The upper portion of the 
City Hall Park was originally a potter's field, and 
adjoining it was a negro burial-ground that extended 
across Chambers Street. Washington Square was used 
not only as a burial-place for paupers, but also for yel- 
low-fever patients, and the ashes of the dead lie thick 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 4I 

under its green patches of sward and stately elms. 
Subsequently a potter's field was opened at Madison 
Square, adjoining the public buildings that once stood 
there — the House of Refuge occupying the site of the 
Worth Monument. Fashion enjoys the lovely little 
park, but little recks that it owes its pleasant shade to 
the tramps and the criminals whose bones lie mould- 
ering beneath the grass and flowers. 

It is a grateful incident in connection with this sum- 
mer tour around New York — begun originally with the 
idea of showing to the modern race of Gothamites 
how much there is within their local boundaries to 
interest and inspire them — that these papers have 
brought to the writer a number of appreciative letters 
of encouragement. One suggests that it would be a 
good thing to tell the story of the old merchants who 
lived in Pearl and Broad streets, and on lower Broad- 
way, and whose social habits would form a striking 
contrast to the club -life of to-day. Another speaks 
of Washington Square in its ancient glory, when the 
Alsops, Rhinelanders, Robinsons, and other solid old 
families had their homes facing its elms, and not far 
away lived the Grinnells, Bogerts, Leroys, Minturns, 
and Livingstons. This letter recalled in one of its 
suggestions a man of mark who but recently passed 
away in Italy, and who, in his prime, I thought to be 
the handsomest man in the city. This was James E. 
Cooley, of the firm of Cooley, Keese & Hill, auction- 
eers, whose home was on Macdougal Street, near 
Washington Square, and who was an accomplished 
scholar as well as genial gentleman. A third letter 
expresses the hope that, in some future article, the 
writer will " indulg-e us in a more detailed account of 



42 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

the old residents about St. John's Park, and what has 
become of them and their descendants. Take Beach 
Street, for instance. There were the Parets, Robert 
B. Minturn, Wm. Whitlock, the Hyslops, John C. Ham- 
ilton, the Smedbergs, Tracys, and George Griffin, with 
his blue side-winged spectacles, and broad shoes con- 
structed for comfort. And then on Laight Street, Dr. 
Wilkes, Dr. Green, the Lydigs, and all of them. Let 
us hear about them all." 

A writer in the Evening Post once suggested the 
propriety of founding a "Professorship of New York" 
at Columbia College, with the idea of imparting to the 
student of society accurate knowledge of the city in 
which we move and have our being. That was an ad- 
mirable idea. The modern writer of press letters or ar- 
ticles about this city knows in society only the very re- 
cent Mrs. Potiphar and her friends. For him the old 
names of the past have no meaning. Yet the Knicker- 
bocker race is not extinct. It sounds no trumpets and 
creates no sensations. To its charmed circle the gold- 
en eagle is no passport of admission. There was a youth 
of tender years, born in Connecticut, and who had nev- 
er strayed beyond its borders, who was asked at a school 
examination which were the principal rivers of the 
world., He promptly responded, " The Scantic, the 
Podunck, and the Connecticut." On the same princi- 
ple the average exotic who chronicles the social doings 
of the metropolis runs over the gamut of a few mod- 
ern millionaires and their kin, and does not dream that 
he has not done full justice to his theme. As for the 
historical points that could make every nook and cor- 
ner of the city a romance, they are outside of his knowl- 
edge. By all means we should have the professorship. 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 43 



CHAPTER V 

ECHOES OF THE STREETS — MERCHANTS OF A PAST GENERATION — SOLID 
MEN WHO ENJOYED LIFE — MUSEUM DAYS — THE OLD AUCTIONEERS 
— THE HEROES OF COMMERCE 

Thurlow Weed once said to me that he regarded 
the description of the thronging footsteps that beset 
the house of Dr. Manette, in A Talc of Tzvo Cities, as 
the most wonderful piece of descriptive writing that 
Charles Dickens had penned. He quoted, in illustra- 
tion, this passage : '' The footsteps were incessant, and 
the hurry of them became more and more rapid. The 
corner echoed and re-echoed with the tread of feet ; 
some, as it seemed, under the windows ; some, as it 
seemed, in the room ; some coming, some' going, some 
breaking off, some stopping altogether ; all in the dis- 
tant streets, and no one in sight." When I walk along 
lower Broadway in the quiet night, as sometimes hap- 
pens, I hear the huriy of those footsteps on the de- 
serted pavement. They bring back to me the faces of 
the dead — the white-haired patriarchs to whom I looked 
up with reverence as a boy ; the stalwart men whose 
sturdy strength seemed to defy all change ; the manly 
youth who bore the names that commerce, professional 
life, or literature had delighted to honor. They surely 
are not dead who have left such pleasant memories 
behind them. 

Among the thronging footsteps of those whose 
memories still haunt lower Broadway are scores of our 



44 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

old merchants, whose names I recall as some familiar 
circumstance or legend of old business days brings 
them back. It would make a list too long to print if 
all could be remembered and given the honor due 
them. When I was a boy the familiar names of the 
street were Aspinwall,Gracie, Rowland, Coit, Minturn, 
Aymar, Lenox, Bruce, Griswold, Hoyt, Kortright, 
Haight, Storms, Morgan, Wilmerding, King, Ingoldsby, 
Broome, Laight, Dash, Lorillard, Henriques, Wolfe, 
Ogden, Crolius, and — E hen, jam satis! Looked at 
from this point of time, they seem to me like men who 
magnified their position and strove to make the name 
of merchant great. They were not above taking their 
share in politics and doing their best to keep politics 
pure. The first alderman elected after the Revolu- 
tionary War was a wealthy shipping merchant of this 
city, John Broome, who was three times elected Lieu- 
tenant-governor (and the last time without opposition), 
and in whose honor one of the counties of this State 
was named. Since his time another merchant and 
alderman, E. D. Morgan, has been made Governor 
and United States Senator; but he was not a native 
of the city, and brought his ambition with him from 
Connecticut. 

The Hall of Records, the old sugar-house on Rose 
Street, and " Sam Fraunce's tavern," on Broad Street, 
still remain to recall the ante-Revolutionary buildings 
of this city ; but I have heard old men tell of the time 
when the east side below Fulton Street was studded 
with quaint, antique Dutch buildings that had served 
at once as store and home to the old-time merchants. 
The great fire of 1835 swept away nearly all of these 
relics of the city's old life, the last that remained being 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 47 

located on William Street, opposite Sloate Lane, and 
bearing on its front, in sprawling letters, the date 1690. 
Gabled roofs, wide chimneys, and small windows were 
the characteristics of these dwellings. Their English 
successors were more lofty and much more luxurious, in 
many cases aspiring to marble mantel-pieces and huge 
mirrors in heavy mahogany frames, but not infrequently 
retaining the wide fireplace, with its setting of tiles 
that illustrated usually the stories of the Bible. A fine 
specimen of these Scriptural tiles, in blue and white, 
and most quaintly original, can be still seen in the old 
Van Cortlandt House, above Kingsbridge, within the 
area of Van Cortlandt Park. It is to be hoped that 
the Park Commissioners will preserve this ancient 
structure, erected in 1748, which vividly recalls the 
days when it was an outpost in the Neutral Ground, 
and was occupied alternately by Hessian videttes and 
patriot scouts, from whose doors Washington sallied 
forth in full uniform when he began his triumphal 
march to New York on Evacuation Day, 1783. 

Comparatively little business was done on the east 
side of Broadway below the City Hall Park when I 
first began to observe that locality as a boy. There 
were many boarding-houses there, occupying what had 
been the stately homes of the Lows, Hamiltons, Dela- 
fields, Livingstons, Ludlows, Le Roys, Hoffmans, and 
Coldens. There were several hotels there also, the 
Howard, Tremont, and National. But that side of 
the street was immortal among boys as containing 
Barnum's American Museum, and close by was the 
store of John N. Genin, the hatter, who made himself 
fame and fortune by bidding off at a high premium 
the first seat sold for the first concert given by Jenny 




VIEW IN NEW YORK, 1769 



Lind. My grandmother has told me of the great dry- 
goods store which Jotham Smith, the A.T. Stewart of 
his day, opened on the place occupied afterwards by 
Barnum's Museum, and of its removal to a larger 
building on the site of the Astor House, where all 
the ladies in town went to do their shopping. But 
what are dry goods in comparison with the perennial 
pleasures of the museum, where I am certain that I 
had carefully investigated every article on exhibition 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



49 



many score of times, and had no more doubt of the 
authenticity of the club that killed Captain Cook (de- 
stroyed by fire when the museum was burned, but 
risen again, like the Phoenix, from its own ashes and 
still on exhibition) than I had of the doctrines con- 
tained in the Church Catechism ? I liked also to visit 
Peale's Museum, on Broadway, opposite the City Hall 
Park, but not so well as the temple of curiosities at 
the corner of Ann Street. The former was the suc- 
cessor of Scudder's Museum, that occupied the old 
Alms House in the park, and was the first of its kind 
in the city. 

In the days when I was on familiar terms of ac- 
quaintance with the museum, not a few of my school- 
mates lived in the vicinity, in Beekman and Barclay 
streets, and on the streets adjacent to the Park, and 
upon lower Broadway. Their fathers had stores or 
ofiices down-town, mostly east of Broadway, and they 
liked to be near to their business, as their fathers had 
been accustomed to live before them. Business men 
who lived up-town — that is, between Broome Street 
and Union Square — rarely rode to their ofifices. They 
walked and enjoyed the exercise. One could take his 
stand on Broadway on a pleasant afternoon and call 
the roll among passers-by of all the remarkable men in 
town. It came back to me the other afternoon — that 
busy Broadway panorama of forty years ago came back 
— when I saw John Jacob Astor striding sturdily down 
the great thoroughfare towards Wall Street. The 
"Astor boys" could then be seen daily walking from 
their Prince Street office, a stalwart pair, pointed out 
as heirs to wealth that was supposed to be limitless, 
and marvelled at as miracles of industry amid the 

4 



50 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

temptations of money. As for the Vanderbilts, they 
lived quietly on East Broadway, and the Commodore 
and his brother had offices at 62 Broadway, where they 
were weaving the maritime web that was to bring 
them in their millions. As a rule, wealth was not wor- 
shipped then. The old Knickerbocker spirit still ruled, 
and demanded blood and brains as the standard of 
admission to society. Wealth was an honorable and 
most comfortable addition thereto, but it was not a 
sine qua non. 

As I pause on this lower end of the City Hall Park, 
where the footsteps seem to come thickest, I recall 
some names among the old auctioneers of the city 
whose associations, either through school or church or 
society connections, bring back forms that have long 
been dust. The names are those of Pell, Hoffman, 
Lawrence, Haggerty, Draper, Minturn, and Hone, and, 
earliest of all, the Bleeckers. Fifty or sixty years ago 
the auctioneers were commissioned by the Governor 
of the State, and for many a year no one but a Demo- 
crat could obtain a commission at Albany. Smart 
young Loco-focos thus managed to force themselves 
into solid old firms and line their pockets. The auc- 
tioneer was obliged to give a bond to the State for five 
thousand dollars, with two good sureties, that he would 
faithfully pay the duties accruing on his sales. These 
auction duties formed one of the important items in 
the canal fund, and amounted to several hundred 
thousand dollars. As the lists were made public, it 
became a matter of pride with each house to swell 
their own duties to as large a sum as possible by way 
of advertising themselves. The auction houses then 
centred in Pearl, in the vicinity of Wall Street. I 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



51 



recall in the personnel of those firms Lindley M. Hoff- 
man, the pink of courtesy, and a most devoted church- 
man ; ex-Mayor Cornelius W. Lawrence, a genial and 
genuine Knickerbocker; handsome Philip Hone, An- 
thony J. Bleecker, who afterwards headed the list of 
auctioneers, and David Austen, who, as knights of the 
hammer, held the field against all opponents. 

It has seemed to me, as I linger on this old battle- 
ground of business generations, that our city takes too 
little pride in its merchants. More is known about 
our soldiers and our politicians than about our com- 
mercial champions, and more honor is paid them. Yet 




i 



THE JAIL (now the HALL OF RECORDS) 



if one could gather up the legends and traditions of 
mercantile lives, it would be found more interesting 
than the history of our wars, and far more instructive. 



52 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

Around their old homes hngers an aroma of quiet ro- 
mance which history ought to preserve. A sturdy, 
independent folk, they enjoyed life thoroughly in their 
own way, and made the most of it. Nor were they a 
solemn people — far from it. They loved a joke, even 
at their own expense. 

When old John Broome kept store at No. 6 Hanover 
Square he had his residence in the upper part of the 
same house. On one occasion, after a customer had 
called, he took him up-stairs for the customary glass 
of wine. Pianos were rare in those days, and the 
stranger had never seen one; so Mr. Broome called 
one of his daughters to play a tune. The visitor lis- 
tened with delight, but kept fumbling uneasily in his 
pocket, and when she had finished the tune he pulled 
a half-dollar out and laid it before the daughter. She 
blushed, laughed, and glanced at her father, who 
chuckled, winked, and signed to her to keep it. 

Odd stories used to be told of eccentric old Stephen 
Storm, who was in business in Water Street, and with 
one of whose boys I went to school. He was fond of 
music, and used to start the tunes at Dr. Matthews's 
church in Garden Street before it was moved up-town. 
It occurred to Mr. Storm at one time to learn to play 
upon the fiddle, and accordingly he inserted an adver- 
tisement in the papers informing the public of his de- 
sire to purchase a violin. The next day the whole 
colored colony of the city was in attendance at his 
store with violins under their arms, reinforced by a 
large contingent of foreigners. One by one they were 
solemnly marshalled in, and each was invited to play a 
tune. The street grew distracted, and threatened mob 
law. After a hundred or more instruments had been 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 53 

tested, Mr. Storm dismissed the crowd, without his 
benediction, however. In the years to come Mr. Storm 
never again ventured to indulge his musical taste, at 
least in the instrumental line. 

The name recalls the old Storm's Hotel, which stood 
on the site of the Slants Zcitung building, and was a 
noted hostlery in its day. Major Noah used to tell, 
with many a chuckle, a story that associated the elder 
Astor with the hotel. One of the old fur merchant's 
book-keepers had reached the age of sixty, and was to 
be retired. Mr. Astor gave him the choice of a gift of 
$1000 in cash or a promise to pay his board bill while 
he lived. The superannuated clerk chose the promise 
to pay instead of the cash, and lived for twenty years 
at the Storm's Hotel at the expense of John Jacob 
Astor, who failed to find anything amusing in his 
longevity. 

No man was better known in New York half a cen- 
tury ago than this same Major Noah. He was a man 
of wonderful wit, erudition, and social and political 
power. The contemporary of James Watson Webb 
and the older editors, whose down-town sanctums were 
fully as dreary as the dens of the lawyers and business 
men of their day, he wielded a pen as keen as his wit. 
It was he who, when Minister to Algiers, persuaded 
the Dey to make a most favorable treaty with the 
United States, on the ground that it was not a Chris- 
tian nation — which he proceeded to prove by reference 
to the Constitution. The Dey was delighted to get 
ahead of France and England, to w^hom he had prom- 
ised to sign no treaty with another Christian nation. 

But the tourist cannot linger longer with the ghosts 
of the past, and so he passes on, with the expression of 



54 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

a hope that the time is not distant when the city will 
build monuments to commemorate its commercial he- 
roes, and rescue the names of Livingston and Lewis 
and Broome and their business peers from oblivion. 
Some day the ghostly cadence of their footsteps will 
cease on our busy streets, when we, who are gray-haired 
and learned about them when young, shall have fol- 
lowed also to their rest. 




SEAL OF NEW YORK CITY 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 55 



CHAPTER VI 

BROADWAY IN SIMPLER DAYS — AMONG THE OLD-TIME THEATRES — MAY 
MEETINGS AT THE TABERNACLE — THE FIRST SEWING-MACHINE — 
BROADWAY GARDENS AND CHURCHES — A NIGHT WITH CHRISTY's 
MINSTRELS — THE RAVELS AT NIBLO'S 

" Do you know," I said to a friend, recently, as we 
dived into a crowded train on the elevated railroad, " I 
think we take less exercise than we did a generation 
ago, and are degenerating? In the matter of legs I am 
quite sure the decadence must be marked. The re- 
vived fashion of knee-breeches, now impending, will 
find us unable to cope with the traditionary anatomies 
of stalwart George Washington, who was a prodigious 
jumper, and sturdy John Adams, whose lower limbs 
were solid as the granite hills that stood around his 
home. The art of walking has gone out of fashion 
with us, and it has operated to our physical loss." 

" Do you know," calmly responded my friend, " I 
think you are growing old, and, as is the way with all 
who cultivate a sere and yellow acquaintance with old 
Father Time, are learning to grumble at the present, 
just because it is somewhat juvenile?" 

Can this be true ? My old friend Bowie Dash re- 
marked to a common acquaintance the other day that, 
judging by my reminiscences, I must be somewhere in 
the neighborhood of ninety- five. As to Mr. Dash's 
suggestion of age, I quite scorn it. Did not the same 
ruler warm us up, anatomically and intellectually, 



$6 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

when we two were neophytes in the temple of learn- 
ing in Franklin Street, over which Mr. Jeremiah J. 
Greenough presided ? Indeed, we are both young — 
comparatively. Yet a newer generation can behold in 
our reminiscences, as in a mirror, the day when street- 
cars were unknown, omnibuses a rarity, and when, in 
the absence of furnaces, heaters, and self - feeding 
stoves, the boy was solemnly admonished, as winter 
drew nigh, that pedestrian exercise was the best thing 
to keep his blood in circulation and help him defy 
the blasts of December. 
\ Everybody walked to and from business when I was 

"^ a boy. That is, everybody except those who lived in 
the outskirts of Greenwich Village and in Chelsea, 
who went by stages, and except a few invalids and 
octogenarians. It told against a man to pamper him- 
self with sixpenny rides in an omnibus. Besides, one 
always counted on meeting acquaintances upon the 
Broadway promenade at certain hours, and the hearty 
greetings of one's elders were worth something, as we 
juniors thought. It was a physical pleasure to throw 
one's self into the tide of human life that swept up 
the great central thoroughfare every afternoon, and to 
strike out homeward with it. The white-haired crest 
upon the human wave disappeared after a while as the 
club-house, the down-town home, or the political head- 
quarters drew it in, and then, rosy and radiant, a re- 
flex tide of feminine loveliness swept in, and the walk 
became more pleasant than ever. Yes, everybody 
walked in those days, and, as I grew out of boyhood 
towards manhood, I used to think that the rosebud 
garden of Broadway on a crisp autumn afternoon was 
lovely beyond compare. The tide of pedestrians be- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 57 

gan noticeably to diverge to the left at Chambers 
Street, and both to right and left above Canal Street, 
making decided detours towards St. John's Park and 
Washington Square in turn, and growing more and 
more scattered as it approached the up -town neigh- 
borhood above Great Jones Street and Astor Place. 

I like still on brisk autumn days to turn my face to 
Union Square, and take up my march from the neigh- 
borhood of old St. Paul's. If some one is with me who 
is interested in my gray -haired garrulity about other 
days, it makes the way lighter. But I never lack com- 
pany. Indeed, paradoxical as it may seem, it is when 
I am alone that I have most companionship. As I 
walk along, the ghosts of other days trip out to see 
me. They are no noisome apparitions, but gentle, 
sweet-voiced spirits, whose eyes are filled with tender 
recollections, and whose garments bear the scent of 
the roses and hyacinths of many years ago. From 
unexpected spots they dart out to give me greeting 
and to bring to my recollection little occurrences long 
forgotten, but pleasant to recall. In this spot they 
recall a rosy night at the theatre ; there they bring 
back the tender recollection of a school friend who has 
been dust and ashes these five and thirty years; here 
they call up Sunday-school days, and the prolonged 
and inevitable Sunday services beneath the stately 
spire of St. John's Chapel; here again, just around 
that corner, lived the incarnate inspiration of my first 
valentine, whose clustering curls never lived to sleep 
on any other breast than Mother Earth's ; and there, 
too, opposite the St. Nicholas, were the mystic rooms 
in which our college secret society met to initiate 
white-faced neophytes into the mysteries of sworn fra- 




ST. PAUL S CHAPEL 



ternity, while all around the pavement echoes to the 
feet which are silent to the rest of the world, but to 
my ears are instinct with a life that can never die. 
Come with me, then, most patient reader, and as we 
walk up Broadway this afternoon, close your eyes to 
present surroundings, and let me picture the thorough- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 59 

fare as it looked forty years ago, when I strolled up 
from a school-mate's home below the City Hall Park, 
a rosy-cheeked boy in old-fashioned roundabout and 
cap. 

St. Paul's Church has been growing smaller of late 
years, or is it the effect of the great buildings that sur- 
round it? It towered up above all the neighborhood 
when I was a boy, and at one time I had an uncanny 
dread of the marble figure of St. Paul above the por- 
tico, which was said to come down and walk the street 
" when it heard the clock strike twelve at midnight of 
St. Paul's Day." The late William E. Dodge, who 
was so earnest a man that he never appreciated a 
joke, in the course of a familiar lecture to some east- 
side youth said that his nurse once told him that that 
same figure of St. Paul "came down and walked 
around the streets at night," thus wickedly deceiving 
him, and Mr. Dodge used the occasion to warn his 
young friends against telling falsehoods. 

Barnum's Museum, which faced St. Paul's Church 
at the corner of Ann Street, has disappeared long 
since, and I fear that I have never ceased to mourn 
its loss. Wasn't it a wonderful place, though? The 
oval pictures of impossible birds and beasts that stood 
between the outside windows were a scientific specta- 
cle in themselves. But the interior was one vast tem- 
ple of wonder, and I never would have forgiven the 
man who should prove to me that the. club which 
killed Captain Cook was not genuine; that Joyce 
Heth had not held baby George Washington in her 
black arms ; and that the dark, dank little amphithe- 
atre was not a dramatic paradise, in which perform- 
ances were given upon a cramped and rather dirty 



6o A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

stage through so much of the day that Artemus Ward 
said Barnum's actors could be seen towards 7 A.M. 
walking down Broadway to work, with their tin din- 
ner-pails in hand. 

Broadway, between the Astor House and Chambers 
Street, has changed less in forty years than almost 
any other portion of the city. The park has under- 
gone much more change. The Post-office has blotted 
out an oasis of grass and trees, and with the old iron 
fence a small army of hucksters in gingerbread and 
candy have disappeared. On the Broadway side of 
the park stood Peale's Museum. I remember only 
one thing about it : The largest room contained the 
skeleton of a mastodon, at whose feet stood the tiny 
skeleton of a mouse. Opposite the museum, on Park 
Row, the famous Park Theatre was located. I stood 
in the City Hall Park one night and watched its roof- 
tree fall into the flames that devoured the building. 
An engine dashing along the sidewalk of Broadway 
had nearly run over me as I came. We all ran to fires 
in those days, and the engines took the sidewalk or 
the street, just as suited their convenience. I never 
was inside the Park Theatre, but how have I enjoyed 
Aminidab Sleek and Captain Cuttle at Burton's Thea- 
tre in Chambers Street. 

At one corner of Chambers Street the Stewart 
Building is a modern innovation. It displaced, among 
other structures, famous Washington Hall, the polit- 
ical foe of Tammany Hall, built by the Federalists, 
and occupied as their fighting headquarters for many 
years. The building on the opposite corner of Cham- 
bers Street and Broadway was once the Irving House, 
a fashionable hostlery, but it has an older memory for 




,lll 






^]l!!I»Jli,ijj^^^ 

lite 




WASHINGTON HALL 



some of us graybeards. There at one time John C. 
Colt had his office, and there he murdered Adams, the 
printer who was getting out a work on book-keeping 
for him. It was the first tragedy I had ever been able 
to read about, and I remember vividly all the details 
of the body that was packed and shipped to South 
America ; that by adverse winds was brought ashore, 
and would have brought the murderer to the scaffold 
had he not committed suicide on the morning of the 
day set for his execution. Years and years after- 
wards I met Col. Samuel Colt, who always favored the 
rumor that his brother had escaped to France, and 
that the body of a pauper convict had been substi- 



64 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

tilted to deceive the authorities. "Is your brother 
John living in France?" asked a curious Hartford man. 
The answer was prompt and characteristic : " That is 
something which only God Almighty and Sam Colt 
know." 

Somewhere near Duane Street, on Broadway, where 
modern progress has as yet made little change in the 
buildings, the first sewing-machine was exhibited. A 
young girl used to sit in the Avindow and work the 
rather primitive machinery, and she actually seemed 
to sew. Everybody watched the process with inter- 
est, but all regarded it as a toy, and impracticable for 
household use. The ladies set their faces resolutely 
against it. They would have nothing but hand-made 
goods. Philanthropy argued at all our tables, as I re- 
member, that the machine would take the bread out 
of the mouths of the working-women. So the pretty 
girl kept the pedals going in the window, month in 
and month out, and Wall Street was not sharp enough 
to see that there was a fortune in the " toy." It might 
be made to sew a rufifle — yes, no doubt this had been 
done — but to argue that it could make a suit of 
clothes or do the sewing for a household was non- 
sense. 

Just above stood the old New York Hospital, its 
green campus, filled with stately trees, facing Pearl 
Street. In the rear were the gray granite buildings 
which had been erected before the Revolutionary War, 
and which Lord Howe had surrounded with fortifica- 
tions. It always seemed a pity to destroy this pretty 
green spot, but perhaps it was inevitable. Its de- 
struction followed the obliteration of the campus of 
Columbia College at Park Place, and it was pitiable to 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK. 65 

watch the felHng of the sturdy old trees that at both 
these points had withstood the storms of a century, 
and had looked down upon the camp-fires alfke of the 
redcoat of England and the buff and blue soldier of 
the Continental Congress. Other obliterations were 
more natural. Here, on the east side of Broadway, 
between Pearl and Anthony, stood the Broadway 
Thjeatre, beloved of fashion in its day ; on the next 
block was the Broadway Tabernacle, the camping- 
ground of the May meetings, where I stole in often to 
hear the abolitionists speak when I was a boy — Wen- 
dell Phillips, Gerrit Smith, and the lovely little white- 
haired Quakeress, Lucretia Mott. I thought these 
last a horrible crew of fanatics, for I had been bred in 
the doctrine that slavery was no sin ; but there was a 
wonderful fascination for me in those gatherings of 
long-haired, wild -eyed agitators. Time works won- 
ders, and yet the wildest prophet would not have vent- 
ured to predict that the boy who looked upon an 
abolitionist as a special ally of the Evil One would 
one day command a regiment marching through this 
city and through the border States to the fields of the 
South, to strike the shackles from the limbs of the 
enslaved African. 

Between Leonard Street and Catharine Lane stood 
the Society Library building, a handsome structure in 
its day, which afterwards gave place to the publishing 
house of D. Appleton & Co. At Leonard Street there 
was a hotel known as the Carleton House; and there 
was another at Walker Street, known as Florence's 
Hotel ; and below, on the other side, at the north cor- 
ner of Franklin Street, was the famous Taylor's res- 
taurant, frequented by all the society belles of the day. 
5 



66 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

More than one local romance has made Taylor's its 
scene of fashionable dissipation. Fashion has moved 
miles up-town since then, and would now vote Tay- 
lor's a very commonplace affair. But a much more 
attractive place in the early part of the forties was 
Contoit's Garden, which for more than a generation 
occupied a large share of the block between Franklin 
and Leonard streets. Its plain wooden entrance, bear- 
ing the legend, " New York Garden," was overshad- 
owed with trees, and inside were shady nooks, dimly 
lit by colored lanterns, where the young woman of the 
period found it pleasant to sip her cream and listen 
to the compliments of the young man of the times. 
Many a match was made in these old gardens, which 
to-day would seem to the eye but the acme of rural 
simplicity, but to the older city offered all that was 
enjoyable on a moonlight night in the Island of Man- 
hattan. 

Crossing Canal Street — where changes are slow in 
coming on account of the low-lying nature of the land 
— as soon as one begins to mount the grade beyond 
Howard Street, the tokens of improvement lie thick 
on every side. All the landmarks have disappeared 
save one — the artistic beauty of Grace Church iti the 
distance. That edifice is just as fresh and attractive 
to the eye as when its Gothic walls were first reared — 
more than forty years ago. Other churches along the 
line have disappeared. Old St. Thomas's, which for 
many years stood gray and venerable at the corner of 
Broadway and Houston Street, has long since given 
place to stores, and few remember where, on the other 
side of the way. Dr. Chapin ministered to large con- 
gregations. The church was situated at 548 Broad- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 69 

way. opposite, at 563, the Anglo-American Church 
of St. George the Martyr held forth, to which we boys 
of Trinity choir had contributed by singing at a con- 
cert, but which afterwards, I believe, died a lingering 
death. The Church of the Messiah was at 724 Broad- 
way. But the churches of that period for the most part 
kept out of Broadway, and preferred the seclusion of 
the more quiet side streets. 

I have spoken of the old-time theatres, and as I pass 
the site of Mechanics' Hall a whole host of memories 
comes trooping out, and with them comes the echo of 
old plantation songs, most of which were first heard 
here. It was on this spot that Christy's Minstrels 
used to entertain the older New York in a decorously 
jovial manner. There was none of the pinchbeck 
glare of modern dance-and-song minstrelsy, but there 
was instead the song that wakened the tenderest chords 
of the heart and the joke that was not yet worn thread- 
bare. It happened that when I was twelve years old, 
or perhaps a little older, I was deputed at home to 
take six or eight children to Christy's. I was the old- 
est* boy in the crowd, and hence felt myself the man 
of the deputation. But there was a thorn to my rose. 
My very small brother, aged five, was to go, in charge 
of a stately colored girl of eighteen, whom my father 
had brought from the West Indies. I remember be- 
ing just goose enough to be half ashamed to be seen 
with Ancilla in the street, though she was straight and 
handsome as an Indian princess in her bright turban, 
and afterwards captivated and married a wealthy white 
man in California. At the ticket-office they refused to 
let us in because there was a " nigger " in the crowd of 
juveniles. The cold sweat was standing at every pore 



•JO A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

in my body, when there chanced along a belated mem- 
ber of the troupe, who took my money, led us through 
the room in which the company were being " corked," 
and seated us in the little side orchestra gallery which 
overlooked the long hall. There we were the observed 
of all observers. The minstrels all cracked their jokes 
at Ancilla, who leaned over the orchestra rail and 
grinned back to a delighted audience, who applauded 
her shrieks of laughter to the echo. To me<it was an 
evening of prolonged and undiluted misery, for which 
I learned to despise myself afterwards. But it all comes 
back to me this afternoon as I walk by the spot, re- 
membering that Ancilla and I are the only survivors 
of the little party that filled the Mechanics' Hall or- 
chestra gallery that evening. 

How I would like to go to Christy's again, and what 
a treat it would be to enter the old Niblo's Garden and 
see the Ravels in their wonderful pantomimes! Sure- 
ly, no place since then has held so much enjoyment 
for youth who have outgrown the museum, and yet 
have scarcely grown up to Shakespeare. And yet I 
must not forget the Broadway Theatre, where, as a 
boy in close jacket, I remember to have thoroughly 
enjoyed Hackett's masterly representation of Falstaff. 
He first opened to me the delights of Shakespeare — a 
debt which I shall ever owe him. Peace to his ashes ! 
But it seems to me that I can recall now every trick 
of the Ravels, every oddity of their marvellous panto- 
mime, every strange costume, from crowned king to 
skeleton death. Were ever nights so enjoyable to us 
old boys as those we passed in trying to detect the 
legerdemain that cheated our eyes? And how quick- 
ly they passed, and how rare were these treats in the 



A TOUR AROUXD NEW YORK 7 I 

rigid economy of a scholar's life of years ago ! Why, 
it is a delight even to remember them — a remark which 
I think one Horace, of collegiate class-room memory, 
has previously made in much the same connection. 

I was at Niblo's Garden the night that the Ravels 
opened there, as I recall by the incident that the scen- 
ery refused to work in the last act, and left a massive 
brick wall as a rear view of Hades. An uncle of mine, 
a visitor to New York from the rural regions of Mis- 
souri, had taken me there, and when the ballet ap- 
peared I noticed that he covered his eyes with his hat 
and blushed. When I asked him what was the mat- 
ter, he replied that " it beat the West all to pieces." 
To a New York boy his Western innocence rather lent 
flavor to the entertainment, which in fact was perfect- 
ly respectable, and such as the modern theatre-goer 
might have thought to be a trifle slow in its spectacu- 
lar effects. I only wish that I could carry to the the- 
atre of to-day the same zest that I brought -to old 
Niblo's, and that the world of amusement-goers were 
as easily pleased. 

But we have really not yet reached Niblo's Garden 
in our walk, and the shades of evening begin to fall as 
we stand just beyond the stream that once swept down 
from the Collect Pond to the Hudson River and on 
the edge of the Lispenard Meadows. Stream and 
swamp have disappeared, and stately rows of houses 
have taken their places, but the old student of New 
York's history knows the ground on which he stands, 
and it has wonderfully pleasant recollections for him. 
To-morrow we will take up our march again. 

To the Easy Chair of Harper s Magazine, of whom 
the writer has pleasant personal memories in connec- 
tion with the Constitutional Convention of 1867-68, Fe- 



72 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



lix Oldboy desires to return thanks for a most appreci- 
ative notice in a recent number of that periodical. It 
is a double delight to receive such a compliment from 
the author of TJie Potiphar Papers, to whom, in com- 
mon with a generation of New Yorkers, the writer is 




I.ISPENARD MEADOWS 



indebted for the most suggestive and brilliant society 
sketch to which New York's literary brain has given 
birth. The pleasure of writing these reminiscences of 
a day not yet so distant but that it seems like yester- 
day is heightened by the interest manifested in many 
different quarters, and encourages the writer to grasp 
his pilgrim staff again and proceed upon his tour. 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 73 



CHAPTER VIT 

THE POETRY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE — A PROTEST AGAINST THE GOTH — 
MY grandmother's HOME — AN ERA WITHOUT LUXURIES — STATE- 
LY MANNERS OF THE PAST 

I HAVE been visited by the Goths and Vandals, and 
I want to stop right here — in sight of Kalckhook Hill 
and the Lispenard Swamp — and enter my solemn pro- 
test against them. 

" Oldboy," said the chief of the invaders, with a 
Vandal familiarity which I detest, for I am old-fash- 
ioned enough to like to have the " Mr." prefixed to 
my name, not so much for being a Magister Artium 
in the past as for having been educated in the creed 
which makes the finer courtesies of life the touchstone 
of the gentleman — " Oldboy, you can't make a silver 
whistle out of a sow's ear — you can't put any poetry 
into prosaic, old, money-making New York." 

To which I respond with proper mildness that the 
proposition in regard to any creative act of mine is 
perfectly true, since I am but a quiet chronicler in the 
city's by-ways, but that the poetry is there none the 
less. In the years in which my feet have trodden 
these streets I have learned to love them, and out of 
this love has grown an intimate acquaintance with the 
dower this city acquired from nature and from his- 
tory, as well as with the lives and fortunes of its peo- 
ple. Truly, there is no need of any pen attempting 
to make poetry of the wonderful epic that began with 




THE FEDERAL HALL IN WALL STREET 



the ripples that the Halve Maen carved in the still 
waters of a bay crossed as yet only by the canoes of 
the Manhadoes. 

No poetry here ? Why, there is nothing but poetry 
in the story of Wouter Van Twiller, the pioneer Gov- 
ernor, and Petrus Stuyvesant, the exile of the Bouwe- 
rie ; in Jacob Leisler, first martyr to popular liberties, 
and Captain Kidd, the piratical proteg^ of an earl ; in 
the rise of the Liberty Boys, and their battle of Gold- 
en Hill, in which the first blood of the Revolution was 
shed —before the Boston massacre occurred — and in 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 75 

the overthrow of Rivington's royal printing-press ; in 
Washington, at the head of his " old Continentals," 
listening to the reading of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence at the Commons, and in Putnam's dusty 
flight from the Bowling Green to the heights of Spuy- 
ten Duyvel ; in the defeat at Fort Washington and 
the victory at Harlem Plains ; in the original Evacua- 
tion Day and the inauguration of the first President ; 
in the republican life of the city from her first hour of 
freedom from a royal yoke up to the day in which she 
rejected at the polls the monstrous system of social- 
ism that foreign craft sought to impose upon her chil- 
dren. 

To me it is all a sweet and stately epic, and espe- 
cially tender is the strain that tells of the day when I 
was young. For was there no poetry in the life of the 
old New Yorker of that day, who feared God and was 
no brawler? No poetry in the clean, civic life that 
made duty its goal, and left the clamor about rights 
to cure itself ; that gave peace to our borders for six 
days of the week and a quiet Sabbath on the seventh? 
When he went to church and took his wife and chil- 
dren with him, at night knelt down to pray at his 
fireside with his family around him, and by day was 
honest and straightforward, as well as shrewd and in- 
dustrious, was the citizen of New York less poetical 
than if he had worn a cavalier's sword and made the 
street a daily battle-field? Was there no poetry in 
the soul of the smooth-faced youth who went down- 
town in the early morning and swept out his employ- 
er's store, in the fear of God, and even as he did it let 
his thoughts wander to the unpretentious little house 
under whose roof he had made his early decorous visit 



^b A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

last night to the maiden of his choice and his hopes? 
No poetry in the modest damsel, who, prayer-book 
and handkerchief in hand, walked so demurely to 
church that only a pink flush of the cheek denoted 
that she knew whose ringing step was coming near 
her, and who was none the less lovely that she had 
never been to public ball and opera, and did not know 
a dado from a frieze? Then there is none in the trees 
that grow as the Everlasting Will appoints ; in the 
birds who wing their viewless paths in ordained or- 
bits ; in the flowers that blossom sweet and fair in 
their generation ; in the lichens and mosses that cover 
the decay of nature, and the green leaf put forth in 
the spring like a dove from the great brown ark of the 
earth to herald the coming resurrection. 

Go to, O Vandal doubter! It is all poetry as I look 
back. I see the poetry of quiet and unpretentious but 
happy homes, sheltered under long lines of waving 
trees, now exterminated ; of green fields at Blooming- 
dale, easily reached in a stroll, and of country villas 
between Kip's Bay and Harlem River; of farms and 
rustic bowers that dotted the upper part of the isl- 
and, and gave pleasant contrast to the dusty streets of 
the city below ; of the wild and rugged scenery of 
McGowan's Pass and Breakneck Hill ; of the mossy 
sides of old earthworks which shelter now only the 
daisy and the buttercup, but once encircled the men of 
the Revolution; of the ancient wooden bridges that led 
to the serenely rural regions of Westchester County, 
and that served to recall in precept and example the 
ancient Kissing Bridge of our Knickerbocker ancestry. 

The life of the merchant of that day might seem 
commonplace and dull, but it was not. If he lacked 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK T] 

the push and hurry of to-day, the aesthetic ofifice, and 
fashionable business hours, he had his compensations. 
There was poetry in our lost and forgotten industries. 
The stately ships that then carried our flag lay at ev- 
ery wharf, and the offices were redolent with spices 
from the East, and sugars from the Indies and teas 
from Cathay ; and the bluff down-east captains came 
back with wonderful offerings of coral and shells and 
birds and fruit for the wives and children of the ships' 
owners. The visitor to those plain, prosaic places of 
business found himself swept thousands of miles away 
by their sights and scents ; and when he came to talk 
with the men who sent out the busy fleets, he found 
that they knew the story of the ship and exulted in 
its record. He rejoiced, too, in the swift clippers that 
glided off the stocks in our ship-yards on the east side 
and went out upon the ocean to distance the fleets of 
the v.^orld ; in the ring and rattle of a thousand ham- 
mers in yards that are now deserted and have forgot- 
ten the step of the American mechanic ; in the rival 
steamboats that raced up and down the Hudson in the 
days before the railroads on that river were built, and 
in the line of rapid but unfortunate steamships that 
carried our flag from New York to Liverpool and did 
their best to keep it afloat. But he had other loves, 
too — his home, his church, his Shakespeare Club, and 
his whist-party, the hospitable gathering of friends at 
his home, without display and newspaper publication, 
his children — -whom he brought up to look upon him 
as their trusted adviser — his cheery picnics at Elysian 
Fields, and his piscatorial rambles in search of Harlem 
River flounders — yes, and he was even known to be not 
ashamed of loving his wife. The invisible poet was 



78 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

patriotic, too, and when the call came for troops to 
march to distant Mexico, the dull coat of the man of 
business flashed out splendid fires of patriotism. 

It is for these reasons that I protest against the 
atrocious sentiment of the Goth. I look back and see 
the oriole swinging on the swaying branch of the syc- 
amore in the old city streets, and the bluebird flying 
athwart the white blossoms of the horse-chestnut, and 
the robin building her nest in the willow ; under the 
green trees of the forgotten old park my little sisters 
(who began to walk in fields of imperishable green 
thirty years ago) are playing ; and through the quiet 
streets a plodding school-boy goes with his Virgil un- 
der his arm, and with high hopes in his heart ; and for 
that quiet, prosaic life, with its old-time duties and re- 
strictions, its homely joys and patriotic impulses, I, 
Felix Oldboy, am to-day profoundly grateful. There 
is no sweeter poetry in existence than its retrospect. 

It was this old home-life of New York that culmi- 
nated so grandly here in the April days of i86i, when 
the sons of the metropolis shouldered the musket them- 
selves — asking no substitutes and taking no bounty — 
and in the beauty of the spring-tide sunshine marched 
down Broadway to the echo of a city's wild huzzas. No 
cavaliers ever marched more proudly than they. None 
fought better. In the white splendor of their youth 
they lay dead on the field of honor, or returned brown, 
bearded, and victorious. The story of our Theodore 
Winthrop at Big Bethel was the record of all the boys 
from our homes who gave their lives for their coun- 
try. 

But I have said enough, perhaps too much, about 
this poetry business, and I relent. At some future 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 79 

time, when I have completed my great work on The 
Dialects of the ManJiado Indians, tvith Parallel Anno- 
tations on the Coincidences of the Iroquois Tongue, I may 
print a book upon this theme, to the honor and glory 
of the city which I love. 

Meanwhile, instead of proceeding at once on our 
tour up Broadway from Lispenard's Swamp, as I had 
intended, I may as well digress again and answer the 
question of a correspondent who wants to know some- 
thing about my grandmother's home and mine — where 
it was, what it looked like, and whereof was its atmos- 
phere. 

The dear old lady's life was an incarnation of poetry, 
and once in a while, too, she actually dropped into 
versification. " Felix," she said to me on one memo- 
rable occasion when she had come to pay me a visit at 
the old college on the Delaware where I first was matric- 
ulated — " Felix, I composed some of the most beauti- 
ful poetry that you ever heard while I was in the cars 
on my way here." " Give it to me, granny," I replied, 
as I put on the critical air of a highly literary Fresh- 
man. She liked me to call her " granny " when we 
were alone, because she knew it was simply affection- 
ate, and there was something kittenish about her to 
the last. On this occasion she took off her golden 
spectacles, leaned over confidentially towards me, and 
said with sorrowful earnestness, " For the life of me, 
Felix, I can't remember a line of it, and I can't even 
remember what it was about." She never did recall 
it. Unfortunately, too, this is the only specimen of 
my grandmother's poetry. 

But, for all that, her life, in its long, patient widow- 
hood, was a poem of wonderful sweetness. We two — 



80 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

she with her white hair and I with the glow of youth 
— understood each other perfectly, and our lives har- 
monized marvellously, and I think it was from her that 
I caught the affection I feel for some of the inanimate 
localities of which she taught me the history and tra- 
ditions. She was of the ancient colonial lineage of 
New York, and with all her gentleness was a devout 
believer that blood would tell in men as in horses. A 
most womanly woman, when fourscore years had be- 
gun to bow her form, I was fond of persuading her to 
let me have a glimpse of the days of her puissant girl- 
hood, just for the sake of seeing the flush of twenty 
summers creep once more up her cheek, and lighten 
the eyes that never seemed to grow old. It is well 
for us all when we can carry something of this poetry 
of life beyond the fifty years' mile-stone. 

My grandmother lived in a three-story and basement 
brick house that faced St. John's Park. The house 
had a peaked roof and dormer-windows; in front a 
brown-stone stoop, with iron railings ending in a lofty 
extinguisher, whose use departed when link lights 
went out of date, but whose pattern was still fashion- 
able. In front two large sycamores gave ample shade, 
and the wide porch in the rear was covered by grape- 
vines, and the yard was shaded by a horse-chestnut 
tree. The house was severely plain outside ; within, it 
was a model of comfort for that time, though latter- 
day luxury would think it stiff and uncomfortable. 
The lofty walls of the large parlors were painted a 
light drab. There were chandeliers of cut glass, for 
candles, hung from the centre of each ceiling, and sim- 
ilar clusters of glass pendants adorned the mantel-piece, 
which was further set out with massive silver candle- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 83 

Sticks and huge rare shells. Rich carpets of a large 
pattern were on the floor ; the furniture was of satin- 
wood and ebony of severe pattern in the front parlor, 
and of horse-hair, still more severe, in the back. Old- 
fashioned tete-a-tetes were the only sign of yielding to 
the weakness of the human frame in young couples, 
while immense rocking-chairs and small and hard otto- 
mans gave what comfort they could to the old and the 
young. Heavy curtains hung at the deep windows, 
which also contained antique courting appliances, in 
the shape of cushioned seats that filled the window 
space, and that were cosey enough love-nooks when 
the curtains were let down and used as a shield. Pict- 
ures and books were there in profusion, and a cabinet 
collection of shells that my father had brought back 
with him from the Indies. Bric-a-brac was unknown 
and portieres were not dreamed of — -heavy solid ma- 
hogany doors everywhere — but we had huge vases that 
had come direct from China, and rugs that a ship cap- 
tain had brought from the Mediterranean. So we were 
not entirely barbarous. 

It might puzzle the later generation to understand 
how we kept warm all winter, with nothing but grate 
fires of Liverpool coal to heat the parlors, but somehow 
we managed to exist. Nor was there any gas in the 
house. Astral lamps and candles did service down- 
stairs, and we took our candlesticks or small camphene 
lamps to light us up to bed. In the sleeping-rooms 
we had stoves of sheet-iron, in which wood-fires were 
lighted at night or in the morning " to take the chill 
off." Up-stairs were great closets between the large 
sleeping- rooms, that were storehouses in themselves, 
and above was an attic with sloping walls, containing 



84 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

chests, and boxes, and barrels of miscellaneous plun- 
der, out of which I surreptitiously unearthed Percgrim 
Pickle and other morsels of forbidden literature — with 
infinite delight, as I remember. My own room was 
under the eaves, and when I was a boy I delighted to 
climb out of the dormer-window and up the steep 
roof at risk of my neck until I reached the ridge, 
where I would sit astride and watch the swaying of the 
trees in the park and the circling flight of thrush and 
robin. Down-stairs was the basement room, in which 
we dined, whose windows contained semi-transparent 
panes of glass imported from Paris, which it was almost 
a death penalty to break. Under the front porch was 
a hydrant of Croton water, and all that was used had 
to be carried from this point through the house — for 
we had not yet reached the luxury of Croton on every 
floor. The water for the kitchen range and boiler was 
brought from two cisterns built under the flagging of 
the rear yard and filtered through charcoal ; and in the 
yard was also a deep, unused well, which I delighted 
to sound with a plummet. Here were also my treas- 
ures — a dog, parrot, doves, guinea-pigs, and a turtle. 

There was nothing of gilt or gingerbread here, and 
some ordinary comforts of to-day w^ere missing, but 
for all that, we had a good time of it. There was no 
lounging at the feet of beauty, no aesthetic sprawling 
in the drawing-room ; no liveried footman or buttoned 
page, where my grandmother's colored man, Abraham, 
son of an old slave of the family, did the honors of 
attendance. But somehow there Avas a prevailing sense 
of dignity which I failed to find in the " palatial man- 
sion " of Mr. Nabob. The stately manners of my 
grandmother's home were a study. There comes up 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 85 

as I write the picture of Dr. Wainvvright, the model of 
clerical elegance in his day, taking his glass of Madeira 
in a way which was positively sublime to witness, and 
I really do not know where to turn to have the picture 
duplicated in life. When some one expressed surprise, 
in the days before the war, to see Bishop Doane of 
New Jersey take off his hat in the streets to Benny 
Jackson, a colored pastor and preacher at Burlington, 
where they both lived, that distinguished prelate re- 
marked that he could not submit to being outdone in 
politeness by a negro. I heard the bishop once deliver 
a commencement address to the students of Burlington 
College, founded upon the motto of William of Wyke- 
ham, " Manners Makyth Man." That was thirty years 
ago, and it might not be a bad idea to have another 
sermon preached from the same text for the benefit of 
a new generation. 

Poetry? But I must not digress again. As the 
strident voice of the Goth who has stirred me up to 
righteous wrath dies away, and his aggressive form 
passes out of sight, I seem to hear my grandmother 
say, with just a suspicion of sarcastic emphasis in her 
voice, " Felix, tea is ready, and you should have invited 
the gentleman in. A cup of tea is very good to take 
the wind off the stomach." 



86 A TOUR AROUXD NEW YORK 



CHAPTER A^II 

ECCLESIASTICAL RAIDS BY NIGHT — BOWERY VILLAGE' METHODISTS — 
CHARLOTTE TEMPLE'S HOME — A BOOK-STORE OF LANG SYNE — OLD 
LAFAYETTE PLACE— THE TRAGEDY OF CHARLOTTE CANDA — A RE- 
MINDER OF TWEED 

Mv grandmother was a devout attendant upon the 
services of St. John's Chapel, in Varick Street. I can 
see her now, in coal-scuttle bonnet and ample Hudson's 
Bay sables, leaning one arm upon the high top of our 
pew, while she delivered the responses in as firm a 
voice as if she were an ecclesiastical adjutant with a 
copy of general orders from celestial headquarters. 
Her prayer-book was an octavo of formidable dimen- 
sions, for which I had a sincere and somewhat awful 
respect in my very young days ; for, when it was 
brought out from the bureau drawer, I knew that it 
meant the recording of more sermons in my youthful 
calendar. Twice a day to church and twice a day to 
Sunday-school was the rule of the house, and it was 
inflexible. Everybody went to church in those days, 
and we all knew each other and duly catalogued the 
absentees and inquired of their families after service 
as to their welfare. Immediately in front of my grand- 
mother sat Dr. Hunter and his family, behind us Lis- 
penard Stewart ; to the right sat Gen. John A. Dix 
and his household : to the left, across the north aisle, 
was the great square pew, upholstered in drab, in which 
the Lydig family sat. I remember it particularly, be- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 87 

cause of the fact that it appeared to offer unlimited 
scope to the Hmbs of a naturally fidgety boy. 

Once in a while my grandmother would delight me 
by stealing away by night to a Methodist or Presby- 
terian conventicle. Usually she despised heretics and 
schismatics — at least, she said that she did, and tried 
to believe it. But the sermons at St, John's were in- 
variabh' high and dry— delivered high up in the old- 
fashioned, three-decker pulpit, and as dry as the ink on 
the manuscript — and I think the dear old lady felt the 
need occasionally of what some of her ancient heretical 
cronies of other churches called " an awakening dis- 
course." So I was always glad when she put on her 
bonnet of a Sunday evening and locked up the drawer 
that contained her formidable prayer-book, and said, 
'' Come, Felix" — for then I prepared for an awakener. 
We always got it at the Vestry Street Methodist 
Church. No ; you won't find it on the map now. 
The church at present occupies a handsome brown- 
stone building on Seventh Avenue, near Fourteenth 
Street. Then it had a shabby, old brick structure for 
its ecclesiastical home, but its membership numbered 
nearly a thousand, and its congregation overflowed 
the aisles and vestibules. I do not remember the 
names of any preachers I heard there, but they were 
earnest and energetic men, who had no manuscripts 
before them, and who sometimes startled me by 
their plain talk about a brimstone region which I 
was accustomed to hear very delicately alluded to in 
the pulpit. Some of the old hymns that I heard there 
linger still in my memory. There w^as no poetry in 
them, but somehow they had power to sway human- 
ity in masses more than any modern anthem. Some- 



05 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

times my grandmother would hear me singing at 

home, 

" It's the old-time religion, 
And it's good enough for me ;" 

or shouting explosively in the back yard, 

" I am climbing Jacob's ladder;" 

and if she saw me at the time she would turn and look 
at me reproachfully, but she never said anything. 

Occasionally my grandmother compromised with 
her conscience by going to hear an eloquent young 
Virginian who occupied the pulpit of Laight Street 
congregation, and delighted a most fashionable audi- 
ence. She would quietly remark to me on the way 
that he was really more than half a churchman, be- 
cause he wore gown, bands, and cassock when he 
preached, and used the Lord's Prayer and the Creed in 
the opening service. The diagnosis made by my 
grandmother was correct. This young clergyman, the 
Rev. Flavel S. Mines, was afterwards ordained deacon 
and priest in old St. George's Church, in Beekman 
Street, where he became assistant to the Rev. Dr. Mil- 
nor. Some time ago I received a letter from Ben- 
son J. Lossing, asking me if I could tell him what had 
been the young assistant's fate. He wrote : " I think 
he was the most eloquent man I ever heard in the 
pulpit. I suppose he must have passed to his rest 
long ago." Yes; for thirty-four years he has been 
sleeping under the altar of Trinity Church, San Fran- 
cisco, which he founded. 

Now, what has caused this diversion from our tour 
up Broadway, from the Lispenard Meadows? Im- 
primis, it was the recollection that I had forgotten to 




ST. GEORGE S CHURCH, BEEKMAN STREET 



mention the famous book-store of Roe Lockwood, on 
Broadway, below Lispenard Street, where all the boys 
of forty years ago went to purchase their school-books. 
Can I ever forget with what awe I looked up at the 
shelves filled with tomes of tremendous learning, or 
with what pride I went there alone, at the age of eleven, 
and purchased a Cooper's Virgil? It was carefully 
wrapped up in paper, but as soon as I got outside I 
tore the paper off, placed the book nonchalantly un- 



90 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

der my arm, and walked with head erect down to my 
home on the Park — the proudest boy in the city on 
that day. Looking back, I know it must have been a 
queer sight that I presented as I trudged along to 
school with my big books under my arm, and I don't 
wonder that the larger boys in Billy Forrest's school 
stopped me sometimes to see if I could really read the 
direful woes of yEneas and Dido. Small for my years, 
I wore roundabout and trousers, a cap with a visor, 
and a brown linen apron with sleeves, tied behind and 
reaching to my knees. This last was my grandmoth- 
er's idea of a school uniform for small boys. A woollen 
tippet around my neck and a pair of mittens knit by 
home hands completed my winter equipment. Why, 
I can smile myself as I see this queer little figure 
trudging through the snow at the junction of Varick 
and Franklin streets, and far too chilled to cast more 
than an oblique glance at his favorite antiquity — the 
much admired and lamented statue of William Pitt, 
which stood, wrecked and dismantled, outside Mr. 
Riley's Fifth Ward Museum Hotel. But here I am 
digressing again. Mr. Roe Lockwood was an elder in 
the Laight Street Presbyterian Church, as well as a 
shrewd man of business, and this fact it is that has led 
me astray in my tour. 

Another reason for the digression is my chancing in 
upon a quiet celebration in a forgotten neighborhood 
a Sunday or two ago, which brought back to me some 
vivid memories of my visits to the Vestry Street sanct- 
uary. This was the centennial anniversary of the old 
Bowery Village Methodist Church, known now as the 
Seventh Street Church, which began very humbly in 
the parlor of Gilbert Coutant's little frame house, near 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 9I 

the two-miles stone on the Bowery. From the modest 
jxirlor that was carefully sanded every Saturday night 
in preparation for the morrow, the church was moved 
to a site on the ground now occupied by the Cooper 
Institute, and here young and zealous Peter Cooper 
became the first superintendent of its Sunday-school. 
It was moved successively to Nicholas William Street, 
once parallel with Stuyvesant Street, but now blotted 
out, and then to its present situation. I heard John 
Stephenson, who has built street-cars for nearly every 
civilized country, tell the story of his conversion in the 
old church fifty- nine years ago, and he and others 
praised the work of old " Father " Tiemann (father of 
the Mayor of that name), and told the story of the 
church in the days when it was in the prime of its 
strength — the days when I was a boy on the west side, 
and Seventh Street was up-town, and the centre of the 
homes of prosperous tradesmen and wealthy descend- 
ants of the old colonial settlers, who had their bouw^eries 
and villas on the other side of the Sand Hills. The 
neighborhood about St. Mark's Church was known as 
Bowery Village for the first quarter of the present 
century, and even later. 

On an old map of this neighborhood I find the con- 
tinuation of Stuyvesant Street beyond the Bowery 
(now Fourth Avenue) set down as Art Street, and I 
wonder if this was identical with Astor Place as indi- 
cated by some later maps. Upon Art Street, a little 
east of the Bowery, stood the stone house which was 
once the residence of Charlotte Temple. Her story 
seems to have made an impression which ambitious 
and gifted men have failed to create. Her grave in 
Trinity church-yard excites more interest than those of 



92 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



Alexander Hamilton or gallant Captain Lawrence, of 
the Chesapeake. The other day, as I was passing the 
entrance of that church-yard, a quiet-voiced young 
man, on whose arm a shy and pretty bride was leaning, 
asked me if I could point out the grave of Charlotte 
Temple, and they informed me confidentially that they 
were on a tour from Philadelphia. As if a gray mus- 




GRAVE OF CHARLOTTE TEMPLE 



tache like Felix Oldboy could not tell at a glance 
that the two blushing innocents were taking their 
first week's journey in life together, all daisies and 
whipped syllabub and sunshine, to which gold and 
diamonds were but dross. A few moments after- 
wards I passed and saw them forming part of a group 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 93 

that were gazing sadly at the slab sunk in the turf 
that told of a short life sadly ended, and, if I mistake 
not, there was a tear hanging to the eyelids of the 
gentle bride. 

Not far from this neighborhood was another historic 
church, which is fated to go the way of its predeces- 
sors of the same creed in the down -town districts. 
The old Reformed Dutch Church, which has so long 
been a landmark in Lafayette Place, at Fourth Street, 
is now razed to the ground. It has been somewhat 
lonesome since the departure of St. Bartholomew's 
Church, on the opposite side, and a block below, and 
has found its continued existence a burden. The 
young do not mind the moving, but rather enjoy it ; 
but to us older ones the razing of a church hallowed 
by associations with the past is a sore blow. I find 
that we don't like to turn down the streets in which 
an old association of our youth has been slain. We 
go out of our way to avoid it. True, the people we 
have known have moved away, but they cannot carry 
with them the familiar look of their homes and haunts. 
For some years past only the Willetts, out of all the 
old stock, have remained to keep up the ancient con- 
nection of Lafayette Place with the old-time settlers. 
The new race do not even remember when Madame 
Cauda kept her famous school for young ladies next 
door to the Dutch Church — a very rose-bud garden of 
girlish loveliness — and have only dimly heard the tra-' 
dition of a winter's night tragedy that shocked a whole 
city by its startling suddenness and left the Cauda 
household bereaved. The fair young girl who on her 
eighteenth birthnight Avas dashed from her carriage 
and killed, and at the moment she was to make her 




GRAVE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON 



triumphant entrance into society entered into life 
eternal, had a whole city for her mourners. 

While upon the subject of churches, I recall a pict- 
ure of desolation that I witnessed on one of the streets 
east of Broadway, soon after the close of the war — an 
old-fashioned church, with stucco walls, whose roof 
and windows had been dismantled, standing in the 
midst of trees that had been felled and vaults that 
had been rifled of their mouldering coffins. It was 
the old home of St. Stephen's congregation, who had 
moved up-town into a more fashionable neighborhood. 
The old rector. Dr. Price, still lives, though approach- 
ing ninety years of age. But the ruined church had 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 95 

a special interest for me at the time as the place where 
William. M. Tweed attended public worship, or at 
least had his family pew. It did not strike me then 
as prophetic, but I seldom think of that fallen man, 
who gave his occupation as " statesman " when enroll- 
ed as a convict at Rlackwell's Island, without that 
picture of utter desolation in the dismantled church- 
yard that had often echoed to his steps, coming up to 
my mind. Before me lies, by chance, a list of the 
wedding presents made to his daughter. It is a queer 
record. There are names here which are still potent 
in local politics, chiefly of Mr. Tweed's own political 
following, but among them are sandwiched the names 
of Jay Gould, Thurlow Weed, James Fisk, Jr., Isaac 
Hell, Hugh J. Hastings, and other gentlemen of ap- 
parently opposite views, and the value of the presents 
mounts up to a small fortune. 

As I trudge back to Broadway and prepare to take 
up again my line of march from the vicinity of Canal 
Street, near by the spot w'here a lovely lane once ran 
from the Bayard mansion, a little to the east of this 
thoroughfare, down through Lispenard Meadows to 
the North River shore, I am composing mentally a 
sermon upon shade trees. An old school-teacher of 
mine once vowed in his wrath — apropos of an adoles- 
cent elm -tree that had been hacked to death by the 
knives of his pupils — that " the boy who would kill a 
shade tree would kill a man," and I do not know but 
that in the main he was correct. My uncle has told 
me that when he was a boy, Broadway and all the 
adjacent streets were lined with trees of every native 
species. It is curious to read that in the time when 
Broadway, from the arched bridge (Canal Street) to 



96 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

its junction with the Bowery Lane (at Union Square) 
was known as the Middle Road, Mr. Samuel Burling 
offered to furnish poplar- trees to line the thorough- 
fare from Leonard Street to Art Street, and that there 
was poetry enough in the Common Council to agree 
that the arrangement would be " an additional beauty 
to Broadway, the pride of our city!" I try to fancy 
it all as we stand here — the modest dwellings close at 
hand, which were the homes of the Pells, the Gris- 
wolds, the Hoffmans, the Lawrences, the Ludlows, 
Citizen Genet, and Dr. Livingston, and the stately 
poplars that stood sentinel in front of them ; the cir- 
cus that fronted unobtrusively on the main street and 
hid itself in the fields beyond; the public-house at 
Broadway and Grand Street, with Tattersall's below 
it. But I cannot make it real. My uncle has told 
me that the open ditch or stream at Canal Street was 
eight or ten feet wide, and that its banks were lined 
with beautiful wild flowers, and that upon the hills in 
the rear of Broadway and below Spring Street the 
boys of his day used to play in the remains of the 
Revolutionary earthworks. I recall hereabouts the 
old Olympic Theatre, the American Art Union (whose 
annual drawings of pictures made one of the milder 
sensations of the day), the Manhattan Club, and Tat- 
tersall's. 

Tattersall's, on the east side of Broadway, between 
Howard and Grand streets, was one of the best known 
institutions of the old city. Here one could buy any 
sort of a horse or carriage at an hour's notice, and its 
auctions were as amusing as a circus. Perhaps my 
own memory of it is faint, but it had been freshened 
up by my uncle. In youth a centaur, he used to 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 97 

spend all his spare time around Tattersall's stables, 
and more than once his mother had been properly 
shocked at seeing him flying down the street on the 
bare back of a horse which he had been permitted to 
take out for exercise or to ride to water at the Arched 
Bridge. A reckless boy, he rode like the wind, and 
kept up his pace through life, but he always loved the 
mother who adored this most daring of her offspring. 
When in a rem.iniscent train of thought on this line, 
my grandmother said, solemnly, " Felix, if I had that 
boy's neck broken once, I had it broken a hundred 
times, and then to think he died quietly in his bed, 
after all !" If I had not known my grandmother in- 
finitely well, I might have thought that she had been 
actually disappointed at her favorite son's edifying 
end. But I took up her great cat, Gustavus Adolphus, 
a famous fellow of the tiger pattern, who was never far 
away from the gentle old lady's little feet (which had 
moved daintily in the minuet in the old Clinton Man- 
sion on the Hudson River, close by Greenwich Village, 
and had wrought immense havoc among the high-col- 
lared and voluminously -cravated exquisites of the 
period), and placed him in her lap. And as she stroked 
his fur a tear fell on the ferocious whiskers of the 
namesake of Sweden's hero, and he looked up and 
plaintively purred as if he, too, had understood it all. 



98 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



CHAPTER IX 

ECCENTRICITIES OF MEMORY — QUEER STREET CHARACTERS — THE ONLY 
SON OF A KING,— IDIOMS OF A PAST GENERATION — OLD VOLUNTEER 
FIREMEN — A FORGOTTEN STATESMAN 

A QUEER thing is this memory of ours. When we 
have leisure to overhaul its storehouses, to brush away 
the dust and restore the forgotten pictures of long ago, 
it creates a new world of old friends for us veterans 
who persist in lagging behind the majority. With an 
implacable enemy sowing white hairs and deep wrin- 
kles, I understand what my grandmother meant when 
she told me that she was never lonesome; that all the 
sweet visions and hallowed spectres of the past came 
trooping around her as she sat by the fireside in the 
winter nights, and they made her wondrously content. 
The babies she had kissed in death half a century be- 
fore, and that had never grown an hour older ; the 
stalwart young brother who went to sea in her girl- 
hood, and never was heard of again ; the husband 
taken from her side in early manhood ; the endless 
line of friends who for two generations had been pass- 
ing over Jordan into the land of promise ; her brides- 
maids, the children she had played with, her own 
pretty young mother — all these came trooping around 
the white-haired old lady and made her happy in her 
loneliest hours. Surely one of the beatitudes was 
omitted in making up the transcript, for, blessed are 
the aged who understand how to grow old gracefully. 



^1 




A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK lOI 

" Did you ever hear me preach ?" asked the elder 
Coleridge of Charles Lamb. " I never heard you do 
anything else," was the sharp response. Perhaps some 
of my readers will think my grandmother was right in 
desiring to train me up for a minister, and that there 
is a surplus of moralizing in these papers. The dear 
old lady was so bent upon my making a career of the 
pulpit that she objected to my taking dancing lessons 
at Monsieur Charraud's Terpsichorean rookery on 
White Street. Do any of the old boys remember 
that musty old resort — the dingy nests of boxes in 
which hats and shoes were deposited, the well -waxed 
floor lighted by candles in sconces, the dear old danc- 
ing-master and his endless violin, and goblin wrath 
with a pupil's awkwardness, the giggling of the girls 
who carried on surreptitious flirtations through offer- 
ings of taffy and peanuts, the wild delight of escorting 
a chosen sweetheart home, and the sorrow of having 
to leave her at the nearest corner to her home, for 
fear her big sisters would make her life miserable by 
teasing ? I do not think that this mild revelry would 
have harmed even a student of divinity, much less a 
boy who had no such aspirations. 

These things are all written down in the book of 
memory, and it is the privilege of age to open the vol- 
ume and preach a sermon therefrom. Besides, I am 
tempted into it. One friend writes and asks if I re- 
member the queer personages who used to roam our 
streets when the city was smaller and identities were 
not so easily hidden. Another wants information in 
regard to the idioms, and the political caricatures, and 
the eccentricities of private and public life forty years 
ago — and then I open ike volume of memory's photo- 



I02 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

graphs (though we had nothing but daguerrotypes 
then, and Insley had the most famous gallery of the 
day), and perforce I begin to preach. 

Yes, there were some characters in the streets of 
New York whom everybody knew by sight, but of the 
mysteries of whose life as little was known then as 
now. The Lime-kiln Man was a familiar figure to 
the street arabs and a sphinx to the newspaper men. 
Sturdy, with long beard, and large blue eyes, having 
an appearance of education and of former refinement, 
he had deliberately chosen to make himself an out- 
cast. It was said that he slept in the lime-kilns that 
then existed in the neighborhood of Gansevoort Street, 
and his shabby clothes, and even his long beard, at 
times bore witness to the whiteness of his rough-and- 
ready bedding. He neither sought nor shunned human 
society, and was fond of a stroll down Broadway. To 
us boys he was a fascinating terror ; and while we 
watched him with intense interest, we would have run 
away had he approached us. Tramps were a rarity in 
that day, and the Lime -kiln Man was a hero in our 
eyes, though he was made a Mumbo Jumbo in the 
nursery, and all sorts of stories were prevalent as to 
the crimes he might have committed, of which he was 
doubtless entirely innocent. He made a picturesque 
figure in the little city of quiet workers, and when he 
died he received a longer obituary than many a good 
citizen who had never gone crazy with love or losses. 
The Blue Man was another character who was always 
pointed out to strangers as a local celebrity. There 
was nothing odd about him, except that he had taken 
so much medicine that h)s face had assumed a livid 
hue. Its deep indigo color made him appear a ghost 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK IO3 

among the living, and I well remember how I was 
startled when he was first pointed out to me on Broad- 
way. At two different times there were demented 
men who haunted the City Hall Park and attempted 
to set up in business as the Angel Gabriel. One of 
these preachers of a judgment to come carried a 
trumpet under his arm as a badge of office; the other 
wore a sort of uniform, with a star upon his breast. 
Sometimes they would preach to a few auditors in the 
Park, or at the street corners, and nobody molested 
them. Indeed, one of this eccentric pair showed con- 
siderable method in his madness, and managed to con- 
vince some persons possessed of a little money that 
his claims were divine. He went to the penitentiary. 
The other Angel Gabriel brought up in a lunatic asy- 
lum. Another man of mark had the proud distinction 
of never wearing an overcoat. He wore a full-dress 
suit of black (the dress- coat was commonly worn on 
the streets then), and in the severest winter weather, 
though he had reached the age of seventy, he buttoned 
his coat up to the chin, and with no additional protec- 
tion save a pair of warm gloves, he defied the elements. 
This gentleman, who was an officer of a leading church 
association, was our Hannibal Hamlin in civil life. But 
he was not admired by the boys — for he was continu- 
ally held up to them as an example of what they ought 
to do to harden their constitutions and keep down 
tailors' bills. 

Of all the strange characters whom I saw or met in 
early years, the one who interested me most was the 
Rev. Eleazer Williams, missionary to the St. Regis 
Indians, in the northern part of the State. He was 
not a claimant, and yet he believed himself to be the 



I04 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

son" of Louis XVI. of France. As I saw him in the 
chancel of St. John's Chapel, in his surplice, with a 
black velvet cap on his head, he looked all that he 
claimed to be ; as he wrote his autograph for me after- 
wards, he looked "every inch a king." I had hoped 
he would write his royal autograph. " No, my son," 
he replied, " I am only a missionary now, though a 
king's son." He had no doubts as to his royal birth; 
I have never had any concerning him. Prince de Join- 
ville and other dignitaries of the French kingdom had 
gone to him to get him to sign off claims that he had 
never made, and he refused. He would not sell his 
birthright, and he did not want to wear a crown. 
That was kingliness. Mr. Williams was present at a 
reception at Dr. Wainwright's residence in Hubert 
Street, and a young student of divinity who had never 
heard of him had been looking at some rare portraits 
of the royal family of France which happened to be 
on the walls. Suddenly he turned to a fellow-student 
and said, " See, one of those old Bourbons has stepped 
out of his frame and is walking around here." The 
living portrait was a perfect fac- simile. Both young 
men were greatly astonished when, later in the even- 
ing, they learned the strange story of the kingly guest. 
For a brief while Mr. Williams was lionized in New 
York, and was made the subject of a wide -spread 
inquiry, "Have we a Bourbon among us?" He re- 
turned quietly to his work, and died a few years after- 
wards among the people to whom he had given his 
life. That the son of a king of France should become 
a Protestant missionary in the American Republic is a 
flight beyond the ordinary ether of fiction. Yet he 
believed it, and so do I. 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK I05 

Idioms? Yes, slang is of no nation or period. It 
was a characteristic of a past generation, as it is to-day, 
though I am quite certain that neither the clergy in 
their pulpits nor the ladies in their homes indulged in 
it. Oueerly enough, one can trace the story of any 
given period in its idioms, or, if you please, in its slang. 
The idioms stand for living people, real scenes, and 
actual life. Twelve or fifteen years before the war 
for the Union broke out, a New York boy of good 
family ran away to sea and made a whaling voyage. 
Out in the South Pacific Ocean one day his ship anch- 
ored off a small island, little more than a coral reef 
in the wide waste of waters, in the hope of getting 
fresh supplies. Presently a great canoe, paddled by a 
score of dusky spearmen, shot out from the shore, 
and a huge islander, who turned out to be the king of 
the reef, clambered up the side of the ship. When he 
reached the deck the monarch smiled so as to show 
every one of his milk-white teeth, and laughed assur- 
ingly. " Do you speak English ?" asked the captain. 
The giant opened his capacious mouth and roared out, 
" I kills for Keyser !" The mystified captain, who 
was a New Englander, inquired " what in the name of 
iniquity" he meant. " I kills for Keyser!" roared the 
giant again. And then the young New Yorker stepped 
forward and explained that this was a New York idiom 
— not to say a bit of slang — in general use at one time 
in the Bowery. Keyser was a famous cattle man, and 
the butchers who " killed " for him were proud of as- 
serting the fact, and it had passed into the slang of 
the period. A shipwrecked sailor or some delayed 
ship had taught the King this one sentence in English, 
and he was as proud of it as if he had acquired the 



Io6 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

whole language. To him it meant a royal salutation^ 
and he followed it up with royal gifts to the ship. But 
to the New Yorker who heard it there, five thousand 
miles from home, it came like a cry of mockery from 
the grave. 

Was it the fireman in real life or the fire laddie of 
the stage who gave rise to the slang that centred 
around the life of the volunteer fireman? For a long 
time, in my school-days, " Mose," " Lize," and " Syk- 
sey " were familiar names upon our play-grounds, and 
we shouted to "wash her out" or "take de butt" as 
if we were veritable Chanfraus. The caricatures of 
the period found inexhaustible fun in " Mose," with 
his red shirt, black broadcloth pantaloons tucked into 
his boot-tops, his elfin " soap-locks " hanging over each 
ear and down his close-shaven cheeks, his tall silk hat 
perched on one side of his head, and his broadcloth 
coat hung over his left arm. For his " Lize " he or- 
dered pork and beans in the restaurant, and bade the 
waiter, " Don't yer stop ter count a bean," and to 
" Lize" he remarked, as he drove out on the road, " It 
isn't a graveyard we're passin'; it's mile-stones." Pos- 
sibly a new generation does not see anything laugh- 
able in these traditional jokes, but to the men of that 
period they stood for living actualities, the dashing 
heroes of many a fierce battle with the dread forces of 
fire. 

I honor the old volunteer firemen. When one of 
the battered " machines " of former days passes by in 
a public procession I feel like taking off my hat to it, 
as I always do to the tattered colors that I have fol- 
lowed on many a fierce field of fight. Ah, what 
nights of noise and struggle were those in which the 



I 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



109 



engines rattled down pavement or sidewalk, drawn by- 
scores of willing hands and ushered into action by the 
hoarse cries of hundreds of cheering voices. There 
was no boy's play around the engine when once it be- 
gan to battle with the flames. Men left their pleasant 
firesides to risk their lives for the preservation of the 
lives and property of others, and they did it without 
bravado, as if it were but one of the ordinary duties 
of their lot. They had their jealousies and their preju- 
dices, their feuds and their fights of rival organizations, 
but all met alike on the common ground of self-sac- 
rifice for the common good. All classes of society 
were represented in the ranks of the firemen. The me- 
chanic and the son of the wealthy merchant Avere in- 
distinguishable under the volunteer's heavy hat, and 
emulated each other in labors and daring. College 
graduates drew the silver-mounted carriage of Amity 
Hose to the scene of peril, and then the boys of " Old 
Columbia " did as good w^ork amid the flames as the 
gilt-edged boys of the Seventh Regiment did after- 
wards through the long years of war. And then the 
firemen's processions — were they not superb? What 
a magnificent polish the engines took, and how exu- 
berantly they were garlanded with flowers, and how 
full were the long lines of red-shirted laddies who 
manned the ropes and were the cynosure of the ad- 
miring eyes of all feminine Gotham ! The men who 
carried the trumpets were the conquering heroes of 
the day and the envy of every boyish beholder. It 
seems a pity that their glory should have departed. 
Has it departed? I open the book of memory again, 
and they are all there, and the glory of their record is 
undimmed : 



no A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

" Those ahold of fire-engines and hook-and-ladder ropes 
No less to me than the gods of the antique wars." 

Speaking of the caricatures of that day, I am re- 
minded that the first poHtical caricature which I re- 
member to have seen was entitled " The Fox of Kin- 
derhook." It was a large lithograph of a fox curled 
up at the entrance of his den in the rocks, and in 
place of his head was substituted the shrewd, sagacious 
face of Martin Van Buren. At that time, though 
John Tyler was President, Mr. Van Buren was still a 
political power, not merely in the State of New York, 
but in the country at large. Yet to-day he is nothing 
more than a memory. Senator of the United States, 
Minister at the Court of St. James's, Secretary of State, 
and finally President of the United States, his was a 
most illustrious record, yet how many are able to re- 
call the story of his statesmanship ? Stat noniinis um- 
bra. We speak without thought when we say of this 
or that man who has managed to achieve distinction 
that his name and achievements will never be forgot- 
ten, A caricature is as apt to fix fame as a library of 
biographies. 

But the fire has almost gone out, the chair on the 
other side of my old-fashioned grate in which my 
grandmother used to sit is empty, the familiar spirits 
of the past have vanished in anticipation of cock-crow- 
ing, and I very much fear that some gentle Charles 
Lamb of the present generation will whisper in my 
ear : " I never heard you do anything else but preach." 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



CHAPTER X 

CHRISTMAS IN THE OLDER DAYS — A FLIRTATION UNDER THE MIS- 
TLETOE — SIXPENNY SLEIGH-RIDES — LITERATURE OF OUR BOYHOOD 
— SANTA GLAUS IN OUR GRANDMOTHERS* HOMES — DECORATING 
THE CHURCHES 

There is one modern improvement which would 
have dehghted my grandmother's heart — the more 
general observance of Christmas Day. Forty years 
ago the Episcopalians were the only religious body 
that decorated and opened their churches on that day, 
and made it, as it should be, the one day of all the 
year sacredly set apart for home and the little ones. 
The Roman Catholics confined their celebration to an 
early mass, and the members of Protestant denomina- 
tions in many cases held it to be safer to make their 
presents on New-year's Day, and thus to avoid even 
the appearance of a ritualistic tendency. This was a 
fading relic of ancient Puritanism, but was still so 
marked that certain of my adult friends would think 
it necessary to remark that they " did not believe in 
Christmas," when putting a gift into my little hands 
on the first day of the year. Somehow it gave me a 
chill, then, to hear this formal declaration of inde- 
pendence of the tenderest episode in humanity's story. 
I am glad to see our whole busy city gathering at the 
cradle of the Babe of Bethlehem, and in spite of its 
creed of indifferentism, paying homage to the divine 
spirit of the time. In the Christmas atmosphere of 



112 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

our streets and homes, the Christmas bustle of our 
shops and markets, the Christmas sunshine in all 
faces, the Christmas neighborliness of all hearts, and 
the Christmas services and sermons in all churches, I 
see signs of a recognition of humanity's oneness of 
feelings and aims such as are vouchsafed through no 
other channel. 

"And he took a little child and set it in the midst 
of them." There comes back to me now the memory 
of a Christmas season passed in the military prison of 
the Confederates in Richmond. An officer of the 
Confederate guard came into the room where the 
Federal officers were quartered, bringing his little girl, 
a child of three or four years of age, with him. The 
sunny-haired babe was a revelation to us. Thought 
flashed back to desolate homes in the North, and fire- 
sides that waited in vain for us. There was not a dry 
eye in the room, I think, and yet those ragged, un- 
kempt men had nothing but smiles for the little one, 
and crowded around her with gifts of trinkets they 
had carved during their long hours of leisure. The 
babe did not know that she was a preacher, and her 
congregation did not realize, then at least, the fulfil- 
ment of a prophecy that a little child should lead 
them. Set in the midst of them, she did lead them a 
step nearer heaven. "Yes," said my grandmother, 
when I told her of this, and the tears were flowing 
freely as she tried to fix a grim smile upon her 
gentle face — " yes, Felix, and I suppose you stood 
there and stared, too, and made a gumpey of your- 
self." Precisely what kind of animal or apparition 
a " gumpey " was I have never been able to deter- 
mine, but it was rather a favorite synonyme with our 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK II3 

elders for something horrible and awkward in the 
extreme. 

Let us have no mistakes to start with. We children 
had a good time on Christmas Day. That was our 
contract, and we carried it out. Let me look back as 
far as I can, and see how a school-boy prospered at 
the hands of St. Nicholas. And right here let me say 
that even as late as the year of which I speak, some 
of the stanch old Dutch families celebrated the feast 
of St. Nicholas on his natal day and gave their Santa- 
Claus gifts nearly three weeks before Christmas — even 
at the last yielding reluctantly to the English innova- 
tion that transferred the traditions of the old city's 
patron saint to the holiday which England's Church 
most honored. 

A light snow was falling when I ran out of our 
house in St. John's Park, upon Christmas Eve, on my 
way to an early celebration of the holiday at Mr. 
Greenough's school in Franklin Street. The sedate 
New England pedagogue was a rigid Presbyterian, 
but it was understood that he relaxed for this once 
on account of his Episcopalian scholars. We had 
recitations and dialogues, followed by lemonade and 
cake, and were home before nine o'clock. Master 
Felix Oldboy distinguished himself on this occasion 
by reciting "The Night Before Christmas," which at 
that time was newly written. I remember nothing 
more vividly than my lonesome walk home on this 
Christmas Eve. It was only nine o'clock, but nobody 
was abroad. I crept through the drifting snow, past 
the old French Church on Franklin Street, past the 
great Dutch Church, past the tall flag-staff at Franklin 
Street and West Broadway — ah, what a long way it 



114 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

seemed then to my little feet, and how short a dis- 
tance now ! — and up through Varick, by quiet houses 
that showed glimpses of light within, but whose blinds 
were decorously closed. It seemed to me, I remem- 
ber, as if everybody had gone to bed, until I came to 
the Park, and there, through the long, thin swirls of" 
snow, through the swaying, feathered crests of the 
trees, I saw the flashes of light from many a window, 
showing that our near neighbors at any rate were ob- 
livious of all ancient edicts against the royal claims of 
mince-pie, egg-nogg, and Santa Claus. 

At our house we always made much of Christmas 
Eve. When I had entered and removed my cap and 
woollen comforter (the boy of that day never wore an 
overcoat), I found the parlors radiant with festoons of 
evergreens and innumerable candles, and filled with 
visitors. To my horror, I was almost immediately 
stood up before them and made to recite my " piece " 
— for there was then no Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Children, or to their audiences. But there 
was fun enough afterwards to make up for this — two 
long hours of wild dissipation followed. The elder 
people played whist (and they did it savagely, too, at 
intervals), and we children had our games of " pillows 
and keys," "stage-coach," and "going to Jerusalem," 
with plenty of forfeits and exquisite schemes for their 
redemption. The big people had cake and punch be- 
tween whiles; we juniors had cake and mild egg-nogg. 
Shall I ever forget that night? It was then that for 
the first time I discovered that I was the possessor of 
a heart, only to find that I had made it over indis- 
solubly to a lovely being of seven summers, who wore 
pigtails and pantalets, and whose father got aAvfully 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK II5 

cross over whist, and lived in Pike Street. Indeed, she 
was bewitching, and a most arrant little flirt withal. 
It was at her knees I threw the pillow every time it 
came to me, and I kissed her in a mad whirl of de- 
light, while she would coolly cross over to a squint- 
eyed rival of mine and smile sweetly as he bent down 
to kiss her. But I had the advantage of knowing the 
locality. So I led her artfully away, and in the back 
entry I had the satisfaction of exchanging with her a 
vow of eternal fidelity. The other children shouted 
at us in chorus, but we did not mind it. We were 
prepared for persecution. It was all that I could do 
to tear myself away from her at last. Her father 
must have guessed my anguish, for he roared out to 
me at the door: " Kiss her, Felix, my boy; kiss Anna 
for her Christmas." Blushing, I obeyed. The tender 
Anna pressed a moist and sticky sugar-plum into my 
hand at parting. I kept it for a whole week in my 
pocket. It was black when my grandmother, on a 
weekly voyage of investigation of my pockets, found 
it and threw it away. 

Do you suppose these people walked home through 
the storm ? Not a bit of it. One of the old stage 
sleighs, with four horses, was provided for them, and 
when it drove away from the door thirty human souls 
with their accompanying bodies were packed into it 
for freight. They sang a lusty Christmas carol as they 
went ; and the watchman of the period, yclept a leath- 
er-head, only smiled as they swept by, and remarked 
to himself that they were having a good time. They 
did have a good time. It took little to amuse them, 
and their enjoyment was thorough. To them the dis- 
ease ennui was unknown. They even found it fun at 



Il6 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

odd times to embark in a Kipp & Brown sleigh and ride 
up to Chelsea and back. As for the boy part of that 
generation, we could have ridden forever in those great 
schooners of the streets. Six, eight, or ten horses 
drew the sleighs, and sometimes they were so crowd- 
ed inside and out that not a fly could have found rest- 
ing-place there. How they whirled through the drifts, 
flew over ice, careened on the hillocks where the side- 
walks had emptied their burdens of snow, and with 
shriek and song and shout from the inmates dashed by 
the smiling and amused lines of pedestrians. But they 
never escaped delicate attentions from the boys who 
had no sixpences with which to purchase a ride. These 
would gather at the corners, collect heaps of snow-balls, 
and then open fire upon the excursionists. It was of no 
avail to expostulate. The police never interfered with 
any legitimate fun. All that could be done was liter- 
ally to bow before the onset, and run the gantlet as 
resignedly as possible. Ah me ! it is a delight to re- 
call these wild excursions through Canal Street, up 
Hudson, beyond the rural homes of old Greenwich 
Village, out among the open streets and surviving 
farm-houses of the hamlet of Chelsea. It was only a 
sixpenny ride, this moonlight dash beside the Hudson, 
but it had an element of romance in it which sets my 
blood tingling as I think of it. I wonder if the girl 
who sat beside me is still living? Many and many an 
old boy (it would be irreverent to speak of old girls, 
wouldn't it ?) will feel the sluggish heart-beat quicken 
as he reads this paragraph, and will drop the paper, 
close his eyes, lean back, and think. And those who 
watch his smile will see again the likeness of the ur- 
chin of fifty years ago. 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 11/ 

It was a religious observance with my sisters and 
me to select carefully the largest stockings owned in 
the family and to tack them securely, at an early hour 
in the evening, to the old-fashioned wooden mantel- 
piece in the basement. This was a ceremony we in- 
trusted to no hands but our own. My little sisters — 
I can scarcely see them now as I look back through 
the mist of tears — our little sisters, I should say, for 
this night I carry with me, I am sure, the tender mem- 
ories of many an old boy other than he who writes 
this passage — they cannot be forgotten. It was only 
yesterday that in the quaint attire of their girlhood 
they trundled their hoops around the park and flung 
back their curls to the autumn winds — only yesterday 
we drew them to school on our sleds, and defended 
them chivalrously against the cannonade of snow-balls 
— only yesterday, it seems, and yet they have been 
dust and ashes for more than thirty years. To-night 
they come back to revisit us — your sisters and mine, 
of whom the world says, " Let me see ; they died 
young, did they not?" But we know better; we know 
they never died at all, for our heart in its love keeps 
them immortal. 

At early daybreak we three, my sisters and I, darted 
down the stairs in swift silence to the basement. We 
did not find enough in the stockings to content a child 
of to-day, but we were, nevertheless, as happy as the 
children of a king. The fact is that the child of to- 
day has ceased to be appreciative. Toys have become 
so many and expensive, juvenile literature has grown 
so extensive and luxurious, and all the appliances for 
the coddling of the young have so multiplied, that 
everything is taken as a matter of course by the youth- 



IlS A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

ful constituent. But the fathers and grandsires of the 
existing race of small Sybarites were much more cir- 
cumscribed. Most of the toys of their day were rude 
and cheap, and many of them, I am bound to admit, 
undeniably homely. These primitive animals, dolls, 
soldiers, and arks were voted " plenty good enough to 
be all broken to pieces in a day or two." But we were 
happy in their possession. No one thought of finding 
fault with the want of expression or natural hair in a 
doll, or the fact that an animal's legs were cut bias, or 
a soldier had no eyes. I verily believe that if I had 
been dropped suddenly into one of the huge toy marts 
of to-day, I should have said to myself that dear old 
Aladdin had lent me his lamp, and I had unconscious- 
ly been rubbing it. As for candies, our parents went 
down to the candy-store of R. L. & A. Stuart, at the 
corner of Chambers and Hudson streets (where I have 
stood on the sidewalk by the hour and watched the 
progress of candy manufacture in the basement), 
bought us each a horn of sugar-plums, with an old- 
fashioned picture on it, and broken candy to an amount 
limited only by the size of our stockings. This was 
wholesome and healthful, as were the apples and or- 
anges that were used as makeweights to fill heel and 
toe of the stocking, and give it the proper bulge. 

I am sure the children of to-day do not appreciate 
all that has been done for them in literature during 
the past thirty years. There was but one weekly pa- 
per published then for the little ones — the YoiitJis 
Companion, printed at Boston, and one magazine, pub- 
lished by old Tommy Stanford, on lower Broadway — 
both of them about as dreary in point of interest as 
could well be imagined. Now every book-firm in our 




THE ILLUMINATION IN NEW YORK ON THE OCCASION OF THE 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT WASHINGTON 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 121 

leading cities is putting its best work into books and 
periodicals for children, and our most brilliant writers 
are catering to their tastes. Do the boys who were 
my contemporaries remember the literary chaff that 
was fed to us? There were the soul -thrilling and 
mirth-provoking adventures of Sandford and Merton, 
with that irredeemable prig, Mr. Tutor Barlow, and his 
endless object-lessons. It was a highly moral book, 
also insufferably dull, and every mischievous boy had 
at least six copies of it presented to him in a lifetime. 
From the Sunday-school library of St. John's Chapel 
I once drew the blood-curdling account of the great 
plague in London, which Mr. Daniel Defoe wrote en- 
tirely from his own imagination, but which I devoutly 
believed to be true. It was so unspeakably horrible 
that it gave me a succession of nightmares for a week. 
A history of Trinity Church, the life of an early bish- 
op, a record of frontier missionary work in Ontario 
County, the exhilarating hymns of Dr. Watts, a life of 
Daniel, and a Boys' Oivii Book were gifts made to me 
from time to time, with others so dreary that I have 
been glad to forget their titles. But I made it up in 
other ways. Surreptitiously I formed acquaintance 
with Master Humphrey and Little Nell ; enjoyed a 
rainy afternoon with Quilp in his summer-house, lis- 
tened to Dick Swiveller as he played upon his flute, 
and laughed at the antics of Sam Weller ; felt my 
heart beat high when Ivanhoe rode into the lists, and 
chuckled, as an incipient Latinist had a right to do, at 
the scholastic conceits of that prince of adventurers. 
Major Dugald Dalgetty. These books I would read 
late at night by the fire in the back parlor, and when 
detected, and the craving for stronger mental food ad- 



122 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

mitted, I was introduced at the age of twelve to the 
fellowship of Robinson Crusoe, the delights of the 
"Arabian Nights," and the secrets of Charles Dickens's 
*' Christmas Carol." Dear old Robinson Crusoe ! I 
was sorry when I learned that he was but a creation 
of Defoe's brain — for I had read his story when lying 
hidden under the bushes of St. John's Park, and had 
crept out to search there for the strange footprint in 
the sand. 

There is one feature of the Christmas season which 
I shall never cease to miss, and whose loss I shall al- 
ways deplore. In the younger and more primitive 
days of the city the ladies of the various parishes took 
upon them the task of preparing the decorations for 
the churches. There were no wreaths or stars or cross- 
es to be had in the markets, but the evergreens were 
ordered in bulk from the country. Huge hemlock- 
trees, great bushes of laurel, masses of ground-pine, 
cedar and pine branches — all were dumped in one het- 
erogeneous heap in the Sunday-school rooms, and the 
deft fingers of the ladies were torn and blackened in 
moulding the pile into shapes of beauty. But there 
were three weeks of solid enjoyment in it. We chil- 
dren put the greens into bunches and handed them to 
our elders. Sometimes it was a quiet young gentle- 
man whose heart was woven into the wreath the maid- 
en was weaving. Sometimes it was a buxom widow 
who kept half a dozen gentlemen and twenty children 
at work. I remember that, small as we were, we had 
our favorite taskmasters, and carefully avoided sundry 
dictatorial old maids. As I grew older, I discovered 
that it was almost as pleasant working among the 
Christmas greens as battling for favors under the mis- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 1 23 

tletoe. Besides, there was a sublime satisfaction in 
looking up from the family pew, during a prosy ser- 
mon, and watching a wreath certain fair fingers had 
woven. What, in comparison with such a treasure, 
does the purchased decoration signify? Indeed, the 
dressing of a church for Christmas has become a lost 
art. The sexton attends to it now. He buys a few 
trees, crosses, and wreaths, and sticks them here or 
there as his fancy dictates. But in the dear old days 
of lang syne we elaborated a plan months beforehand, 
and made the sanctuary a bower of Christmas life and 
glory — creating in those plain, old-fashioned interiors 
a " beauty of holiness." 




COPPER CROWN FROM CUPOLA OF KINg's COLLEGE 



124 -^ TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



CHAPTER XI 

A METROPOLIS OF STRANGERS — SOME OLD MANSION-HOUSES ON THE 
EAST SIDE — CHARACTERISTICS OF BOWERY LIFE — BULL's HEAD AND 
THE AMPHITHEATRE — THE STUYVESANT PEAR-TREE — A HAUNTED 
HOUSE 

No historian of New York gives half so graphic a 
picture of the embryo metropolis of fifty years ago as 
my correspondent, who writes : " I do not think that 
people can understand the size of our city in these 
days. We all knew ' who was who.' Old Mrs. Stuart, 
in black brocade, selling candy by the penny's worth 
at Chambers and Greenwich streets ; Katy Ferguson, 
on Hudson Street, making all the jelly and sweet- 
meats, and Mrs. Isaac Sayres, in Harrison Street, pre- 
paring all the wedding-cake, were types of the time. 
Everybody knew them, as all knew the ministers and 
our few rich men." 

The city is changed, indeed, since then. Not many 
months ago I stood at my window on Washington 
Square, looking out upon a desolate fall day, and hesi- 
tating whether to venture into the power of the storm. 
A drearier morning I had never seen, and there at my 
feet was a little funeral procession ready to start from 
the apartment-house next door. One becomes used 
to such sights in a great city, but my heart ached that 
morning for the people who had to carry their dead 
to the grave amid such utterly desolate surroundings. 
They were strangers, as I supposed, and I had no cu- 



J 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



125 



riosity to watch them, but a day or two afterwards I 
learned that this had been the funeral of an old and 
dear friend. He had gone away from his Long Island 
home a year before in search of health, and had re- 
cently returned to the city to die. It is infinitely easy 
in this cosmopolitan community to drop out of the cur- 
rent, and tears for the dead arc a luxury which a busy 
age is apt to grudge. 

From the top of Chatham Square one could once 
look upon two celebrated mansions — the Walton 







THE WALTON HOUSE IN LATER YEARS 



126 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

House and the home of Col. Henry Rutgers. When 
Pearl Street was known as Queen Street, and was an 
aristocratic quarter, when its gardens reached down to 
the East River, and its neighborhood was free from 
the contaminations of shops, the Walton House was 
in its glory. The richness of its furnishings, its gold 
plate, and its magnificent entertainments, were quoted 
in Parliament as an excuse for taxing the American 
colonies. As a boy I read of this, and I used to go out 
of my way, as opportunity offered, to look at it, and 
try to recall in my mind its vanished splendors. Its 
gentility then had grown very shabby. The high ceil- 
ings were there, and the door-ways through which 
Howe and Clinton and Andre had passed, and the 
floor on which a future King of England had danced 
a minuet with the fairest of New York's rebel daugh- 
ters ; but it was inexpressibly sad to witness the ad- 
vance of squalor, and I was not sorry Avhen the build- 
ing was torn down. The Rutgers homestead occupied, 
when I was a boy, the block bounded by Clinton, Rut- 
gers, Madison, and Cherry streets, a relic of the great 
Rutgers farm. Colonel Rutgers was a model citizen. 
They had no coal strikes in his day, for they used no 
coal then, but once in a while they had a fuel famine. 
Once, during the '20s, the city was ice-bound, and no 
wood could be brought in across the rivers, and the 
suffering of the poor was terrible for a while. Colonel 
Rutgers distributed his supply among his poor neigh- 
bors ; and when this was exhausted, even tore down 
his fences and cut down his trees for their use. It was 
from the limb of a tree in his orchard that Capt. Na- 
than Hale, the martyr spy of the Revolution, is be- 
lieved to have been hanged. But even here tradition 




is at fault ; for one 
authority stoutly 
maintains that he 
was hanged on Beek- 
man Hill, near the 
Beekman mansion, 
and another insists 
that the place of his 
execution was the 
Commons, the pres- 
ent City Hall Park. 
The weight of testi- 
mony favors the Rut- 
I gers orchard. At any 
rate, he was sacrificed 
on our city's soil, and 
we seem to have for- 
gotten it. Andre has his monument ; Hale has none. 
As I turn into the Bowery from Chatham Square I 
am once more reminded of the sad story of Charlotte 



DOORWAY IN THE HALL OF THE 
WALTON HOUSE 



128 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

Temple. On the north side of Pell Street, just west 
of the Bowery, are two frame houses painted yellow. 
In one of these the unfortunate girl, whose sorrows 
set a whole generation weeping, ended her life — mur- 
dered by a British officer to whom she had trustingly 
given her heart. The stone house in Art Street in 
which she had lived was torn down long ago. The 
frame house that screened her last agonies from the 
sight of those who loved her and would have rescued 
her still survives, though few are aware that there is 
any romance connected with such an apparently com- 
monplace building. 

But the Bowery has never been a place of sentiment 
or romance. Its life was largely passed out-doors ; its 
people loved the street and its excitements. Those 
who are living and remember all about it, have told 
me of the crowd that daily gathered around No. ly 
Bowery to see the Boston stage, carrying the United 
States mail, depart and arrive. It was a great event 
in that day. Those who travelled by coach down 
into the wilds of Massachusetts Bay were regarded 
as a species of Argonauts, and indeed the journey 
by such mode would be a formidable one to-day. 
Beyond the Bowery Village the line of travel that is 
now known as Third Avenue was called the Boston 
Road, a title that is still maintained on the other side 
of Harlem River, in spite of changes caused by an- 
nexation. To my young mind the Bowery w'as al- 
ways associated with the excitement of the venerable 
but lively institution known as Bull's Head. I can 
recall that institution as it existed on Third Avenue, 
where a bank stands as a monument to its name, and 
the lep-ends that I have heard in connection with the 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



129 



old Bull's Head Tavern are legion. From the time of 
our Dutch ancestors until modern monopoly swept 
the business into the New Jersey abattoir, New York 
did not know how to exist without its cattle market, 
and when it disappeared one of the liveliest features 
of the city's trade was blotted out. 

The Bowery Theatre was erected on the site of the 
Bull's Head Tavern in 1826, the Mayor laying the cor- 
ner-stone. One of my correspondents writes of this 
theatre that " it was burned to the ground in the sum- 
mer of 1828, at an early hour of the evening. When 
its huge columns fell it shook the whole city from 
centre to circumference, as I well remember." Alarms 




AN OLD GOOSENECK ENGINE 



of fire were frequent even then, sometimes reaching 
five hundred in a year. The firemen worked well 
(and, it must be admitted, they fought well, too), but 
their methods were not sufficient to check such fires 
as the burning of the Park Theatre and the Bowery 
made. When the Park Theatre burned, the site was 
abandoned as a place of amusement, but the Bowery 
Theatre rose again from its ashes, and kept its old 
features unchanged for half a century. 
9 



130 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

The street itself has always been a great place for 
" shows." One of my earliest memories of the Bowery 
is standing in front of a brilliantly painted canvas on 
that thoroughfare, not far from Chatham Square, star- 
ing in open-eyed wonder at the pictures of a calf with 
two heads, warranted to move two ways at the same 
time, and a pig of enormous proportions. This is a 
characteristic of the street to this day. Then, too, 
there was the New York Circus Amphitheatre, an 
earthly paradise to the small boy of the period. Ah, 
what a lovely place it was ! That is, it was not beau- 
tiful to the eye, but, on the contrary, coarse and com- 
mon. The canvas overhead was unclean, the seats were 
dirty, the sawdust smelled abominable, and the sur- 
roundings were cheap and tawdry. But when the oil 
lamps were turned up, and began to glare and smoke, 
when the band played, when the solemn procession of 
equestrians entered, when the vividly painted goddesses 
of the arena followed them on prancing steeds, we 
boys began to climb up to the seventh heaven. We 
reached it when the burly clown threw himself at a 
jump into the sawdust and uttered the welcome, " Here 
we are again !" I hardly expect to enjoy anything 
sublunary as I enjoyed those afternoons at the Amphi- 
theatre. The smell of sawdust brings it all back to me 
at times, and then phantom horses and riders paw the 
air, and a ghostly clown compels my very soul to 
chuckle over a joke that tickled the children of Py. 
thagoras. 

Along the old Boston Road once stood a series of 
mile-stones that extended from New York to and 
through the land of the Puritans. One of these still 
stands on the Bowery, near Prince Street, bearing the 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK I3I 

legend, " One mile from the City Hall." Another 
mile- stone was in the Bowery Village, which half a 
century ago clustered around the site of the present 
Cooper Institute and old St. Mark's Church. Beyond 
this point the Bowery stretched, always a noble ave- 
nue, but never an aristocratic one, in spite of the fact 
that it owed its existence to the country-seats of gen- 
tlemen — the " bouweries " of the solid Dutch burghers 
of two centuries ago. 

As I remember this noted thoroughfare, it was a 
land of many rival carpet-stores, from which long lines 
of carpeting swayed to the breeze for blocks, festooned 
even from the roof; a land of dry-goods and notion 
stores that have since emigrated to Grand Street ; a 
land, even from " way back," of the pawnbroker and 
dealer in musical instruments and jewelry ; a land of 
the " original Jacobs " and " the real original Jacobs ;" 
a land of oyster-saloons, in which one used to sit in a 
curtained stall, and need not be at table with disagree- 
able neighbors : a land in which the signs of the oyster- 
houses were as primitive as economy could suggest, 
consisting only of a round red ball of canvas, into 
which a candle was thrust for illumination at night ; a 
land of daguerrotypes and ambrotypes, in the day in 
which the invention of Daguerre (which our own Dr. 
Draper had just anticipated while Professor of Chem- 
istry at Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia) was still 
spoken of as wonderful ; a land of flannel shirts and 
" dickeys" — the latter being false shirt-fronts tied with 
strings over the masculine brea.st to conceal tlie flannel 
on dress occasions ; a land in which the church build- 
ing did not flourish, but where the tavern and bar were 
frequent ; a land with few foreigners, but where stal- 



132 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

wart American artisans were indigenous ; a land in 
which one could get shaved for sixpence or have the 
hair cut for a shilling, in a shop whose floor was sanded 
and whose gentlemanly proprietor handed you a small 
glass at the close to see whether the operation was suc- 
cessful ; a land in which life could be made comfortable 
at a dollar a day, and board could be had at its hotels for 
four or five dollars a week, though horse-cars were un- 
known, the telegraph an infant industry patronized only 
by the rich, and lager beer a vulgar innovation which 
even Bowery society was trying to frown out of sight. 
It was over two hundred years ago that the Govern- 
or and Council of New Amsterdam gave permission 
to establish a hamlet near the " bouwerie " of Governor 
Stuyvesant. A tavern, a blacksmith -shop, and half 
a dozen other buildings were the result. Old Peter 
Stuyvesant contributed a chapel, in which Hermanns 
Van Hoboken (from whom the cit}^ of Hoboken is 
named), school-master in the city, read service every 
Sunday. His widow devised the edifice to the Re- 
formed Dutch Church ; not many years afterwards it 
passed into the control of the Episcopal congregation 
of " St. Mark's Church in the Bowery." Under its con- 
secrated walls rest the remains of the stout old Dutch 
soldier and statesman, and I wonder how many who 
pass by care to read the inscription on the tablet set 
into the wall that records the life and death of one of 
New York's great men of old time? The old Govern- 
or's mansion, a large, square, imposing edifice, built 
of small yellow brick imported from Holland, stood 
upon a site close by, and was destroyed by fire in the 
Revolution. His well was still in existence in a vacant 
lot between Eleventh and Twelfth streets when I was 



i 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK I33 

a boy. Two other mansion-houses were erected by 
his descendants, one near the East River shore, close 
by the present Avenue A and Sixteenth Street. There 
are many who still remember the winding lane that 
led to it from the old Stuyvesant pear-tree at Third 
Avenue and Thirteenth Street. The other mansion, 
known as the " Bowery House," stood at Second Ave- 
nue and Ninth Street. There is a host of us who can 
recall the famous pear-tree, said to have been planted 
by the hands of doughty Peter Stuyvesant himself, 
which had become a landmark early in this century, 
and which patriotic care had protected with an iron 
railing. The whole city mourned when the patriarch 
of more than two centuries at length fell. An effort 
was made to plant a tree of the same stock on the old 
site, but it did not prove a success. 

At the upper end of the Bowery, Vauxhall Garden 
maintained its reputation as a fashionable place of re- 
freshment and amusement until the middle of the 
present century. A handsome saloon, in which per- 
formances were held, and trees and groves under which 
tables were set, were the features of this once famous 
resort. Admission to the garden was free ; to the 
"saloon," two shillings. Here Russell sang, classic 
tableaus were exhibited, and the ballet was danced in 
properly lengthened skirts. 

An old friend writes to me that a two-story, peaked- 
roof brick house, on the east side of the Bowery (now 
Fourth Avenue), and upon the site of the present 
Cooper Institute, was known as the haunted house. 
" It never had a permanent tenant," writes my friend, 
the lawyer, " from the time I first recollect it, nearly 
sixty years ago, until the time of its demolition, some 




THE STUYVESANT PEAR-TREE 



thirty years since. The ghosts, it was said, uncere- 
moniously flung the rash occupants into the streets as 
soon as the shades of evening had descended upon 
their first day of attempted occupation." 



J 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 135 



CHAPTER XII 

OUR CITY BURIAL-PLOTS — ILLUSTRIOUS DUST AND ASHES — A WOMAN'S 
FIFTY YEARS OF WAITING — THREE HEBREW CEMETERIES — THE 
BURKING EPISODE — SLAVES OF THE OLDEN TIME 

" Felix," said my grandmother, with an altogether 
unaccustomed solemnity, which was emphasized by 
the silence of her knitting-needles, "do you believe 
that the angels are in any way like the cherubim 
carved on the tombstones in old Trinity Church-yard, 
all head and wings, and nothing else? I hope not," 
continued the dear old lady, presently, " for it would 
be awful to live with such creatures for even a thou- 
sand years. Well, well, it doesn't signify. I suppose 
we could get used to that, too. But, Felix, just im- 
agine your poor old grandmother parading a street in 
the New Jerusalem in such company. I really think 
I'd have to ask him to go back and fasten on his body. 
Fm afraid that I should, even if I had to offend him." 

Quaint, and in some respects horribly suggestive, as 
are the winged heads that adorn many of the burial- 
stones in the church-yard of old Trinity and St. Paul's, 
I do not believe that any one would want them changed. 
They belong to an era in which the imagination and 
art were alike crude, but an era of sterling virtues. 
There was no poetry in the psalms in metre that were 
sung in the congregations, but the poetry of an honest 
and patriotic life irradiated church and home. It is a 
long and beautiful record that is unfolded in what was 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



once the new burying-ground of New Amsterdam, far 
away from the Httle dorp, or village, that clustered 
around Old Slip, Coenties Slip, the great dock, and 
the fort, but is now known as Trinity Church-yard. 




Its earliest tomb-stone 
embalmed the memory 
of a young Holland 
maiden who was buried 
here, in sight of the 
broad river, and with 
fields and woods on all 

COENTIES SLIP IN THE DUTCH TIMES sldeS. in 1639 mOrC 

than half a century be- 
fore the first Trinity Church was erected. Its latest 
graves hold the ashes of men who fought for the union 
of the States five and twenty years ago. I have always 
honored the parish of old Trinity for preserving intact 
these down-town resting-places of the dead. They are 
not merely pleasant breathing-spots amid the din of 
business warfare, but they are unresting preachers of 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK I37 

shadow and reality. Millions of dollars have been of- 
fered for the land ; projects have been mooted to drive 
thoroughfares through the plots which our Saxon an- 
cestors delighted to call God's acre ; but the vestry 
of Trinity parish have stood guard sturdily over the 
dust committed to their care, and waved off the dese- 
crating touch of speculation. So may it always be. 

There are few cities richer in graves than our own. 
Within the boundaries of New York rest the ashes of 
a long line of distinguished men. In the vaults of old 
Trinity and St. Paul's, in the Marble Cemetery, in 
Trinity Cemetery, in the old church -yards beyond 
Central Park and above Harlem River, sleep the an- 
cestors of the city's representative families — men emi- 
nent in professional and business life — a line too long 
to enumerate. A volume could be written (and one 
was planned years ago) in giving the brief but honor- 
able record of their lives. But there are a large num- 
ber of graves fitted to become shrines of patriotism, 
and I fear sometimes that we do not realize all that 
this means, or we would do them still more honor. 
The man who stood next to Washington in making 
the union of these States possible sleeps at one end of 
the Island of Manhattan, and at the other rests on his 
laurels the soldier whose skill and patriotism kept the 
Union indissoluble. Alexander Hamilton's grave is 
in Trinity Church-yard ; General Grant's tomb is at 
Riverside Park ; and between, under the walls of an 
old church which he founded, moulders the dust of 
brave, hot-headed Petrus Stuyvesant, last and most 
gallant of the old Dutch Governors of the colony. 
The city which can boast such dust in its soil has a 
right to plume itself on its past. 



138 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



Illustrious men lie buried in every corner of the 
church-yard of old Trinity. Francis Lewis, a signer 
of the Declaration of Independence and a typical New 
York merchant, is interred there ; and his son, Gen. 
Morgan Lewis, a soldier of 1812, sleeps at his side. 
Albert Gallatin, the distinguished Secretary of the 
Treasury ; Col. Marinus Willett, of Revolutionary 
memory ; William Bradford, colonial printer and ed- 




TOMB OF ALBERT GALLATIN 



itor ; Robert Fulton, who launched the first steamboat 
on the Hudson ; Captain Lawrence, who lost the Ches- 
apeake, but sent his last battle-cry, " Don't give up the 
ship!" ringing down the centuries; Bishop Hobart, 
grand pioneer of the cross ; Gen. Phil Kearne3% the 
Murat of the latest struggle for liberty — these are but 
a few of the mighty men who rest in peace under the 
shadow of Trinity's spire. And the women ? Ah, 
who shall fitly hymn their praise and tell the story of 
the mingled sweetness and strength of the lives they 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 139 

quietly lived and that yet " smell sweet and blossom 
in the dust," and of the other lives that they nurtured 
up into honor and renown, content to shine by their 
reflected light? Of all the inscriptions on stone in the 
old burial-ground at the head of Wall Street, the most 
touching to me is that which measures the span of life 
of Captain Lawrence's widow. It is pathetic in its 
perfect simplicity, recording only the name and the 
date of birth and burial. The young wife was but 
twenty-five years of age when her husband climbed 
up into immortal glory from the bloody deck of the 
Chesapeake, and she lived for more than half a century 
in her widowhood. Fifty-two years afterwards, in the 
autumn of 1865, she entered into rest, but not until 
she had witnessed a conflict that shook the land well- 
nigh to its destruction, and had seen the sword finally 
sheathed and the ploughshare again at work. 

Other heroes lie buried elsewhere on our city's soil 
— General Montgomery under the chancel of St. Paul's 
Church, and Admiral Farragut at Woodlawn Ceme- 
tery. Gouverneur Morris, diplomatist, statesman, and 
friend of Washington, sleeps in his family vault be- 
yond Harlem River, under the shadow of St. Ann's 
Church, and for years the body of President Monroe 
rested in the Marble Cemetery on Second Street, un- 
til, in 1859, Virginia asked for the guardianship of his 
ashes, and New York courteously yielded it. There 
is one other grave that should not be forgotten. A 
plain white slab, which stands in the church-yard of 
St. Patrick's Cathedral, bears this inscription : "A la 
memoire de Pierre Landais, ancien Contre-Amiral au 
service des Etats-Unis, Qui Disparut Juin, 1818, age 
87 ans." There is a whole romance, and a bitter one, 



14° 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



in this brief record. A lieutenant in the French Navy, 
Landais entered the service of the United States, dis- 
tinguished himself, and was given command of a frig- 
ate. In the battle between the Serapis and the Bon 
Homme Richard, poor Landais, who executed his ma- 
noeuvres by his text-books, won the name of coward, 
and Paul Jones, in his disregard of all rules, became a 
hero. Cited before the Naval Committee of Congress, 
none of whom understood French or navigation, Lan- 
dais was heard and then discharged from the service 
in disgrace. Again and again he sought another hear- 
ing, but in vain, and for forty years he walked the 




TOMB OF CAPTAIN LAWRENCE 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 14I 

streets in proud and solitary poverty, donning his old 
Continental uniform on great occasions, and at last, 
forgotten and unnoticed, as his epitaph says, he " dis- 
appeared" from life. 

Although Trinity Cemetery is comparatively mod- 
ern, it is the burial-place of many old citizens of New 
York who were eminent in their various walks of life, 
and of many of our older families. Among the nota- 
ble graves which dot that beautiful sleeping-ground of 
the dead are those of Gen. John A. Dix, a hero of the 
wars of 18 1 2 and 1861 ; Bishop Wainwright, William 
B. Astor, Samuel B. Ruggles, Don Alonzo Cushman, 
John H. Contoit, Baker, the artist; Alexander B. Mc- 
Donald, Peter and Henry Erben, organ-builders of an- 
cient renown, and the Rev. Drs. Higbee and Ogilby. 
The list of old families embraces the names of Aymar, 
Ward, Storm, Cisco, Palmer, Lewis, Mount, Dash, 
Voorhis, Guion, Freeman, Dresser, Cotheal, Innes, 
Egleston, Gilbert, and Hoffman. It should not be 
forgotten, also, that in the shadow of the spire of old 
St. Paul's lie buried the Sieur de Rochefontaine, one 
of Count Rochambeau's oflficers ; George Frederick 
Cooke, the actor, whose monument was erected by the 
elder Kean ; and two distinguished sons of Ireland — 
Thomas Addis Emmet and Dr. Macneven. 

In noticing the burial-plots in this city that have 
been obliterated within my memory — and I can recall 
more than a score between the rifled vaults of the old 
Dutch Church on Nassau Street and Harlem River — 
it seems to me that none pay more regard to the dust 
of the dead than do the Jews. There is no synagogue 
to overshadow the old cemetery on New Bowery, yet 
the dead who were inearthed there nearly two centu- 



U: 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



ries ago remain undisturbed, and on the old tomb- 
stones the graven hands out-stretched in benediction 
still remain distinct to the passer-by, to mark the rest- 
ing-place of one 
belonging to the 
house and lineage 
of Aaron. Anoth- 
er of these burial- 
places is on Elev- 
enth Street, near 
Sixth Avenue, so 
hidden by a high 
brick wall that one 
can easily pass it 
by without no- 
tice. It is part of 
a large cemetery 
that in the ear- 
ly years of the 
present century 
stretched along 
the upper bank 
of Minetta Brook, 
and was the prop- 
erty of the con- 
gregation Shear- 
ithIsrael,towhom 
also the burial- 
plot on the New 
Bowery belongs. 
During the yel- 
low-fever visitations graves multiplied here, and when it 
became necessary to lay out Eleventh Street a new plot 




GRAVE OF GEORGE FREDERICK COOKE 



i 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK I43 

was purchased on West Twenty -first Street, near Sixth 
Avenue, and all the bodies were removed from the 
lower to the upper cemetery, except the few that still 
slumber in the little summer-garden by the way-side. 
Long since the upper cemetery, which is still pre- 
served intact, and is now hidden by a high brick w^all 
on Twenty- first Street, became "old," though there 
are people yet living who remember it as part of a 
pleasant vista of field and wood, and not far from a 
little brook that babbled its way down to the Hudson 
at Twenty-sixth Street. 

An old New Yorker and valued correspondent, Mr. 
George A. Halsey, in a letter refers to the burking 
excitement which prevailed in this city in 1829-30, 
occasioned by alleged mysterious disappearances of 
many persons during that period, and intensified by 
the horror of the Burke kidnappings, which had just 
electrified Edinburgh and the United Kingdom. In 
former years there had been a terrible riot, arising 
from a rumor that the doctors, not content with ex- 
huming bodies from the potter's field and the negroes' 
burial-ground, then considered lawful prey, had been 
rifling graves in city cemeteries. But in this case the 
work of the grave was anticipated. Mr. Halsey says : 

" I recollect one of the stories then prevalent, and 
universally believed, that missing children had been 
found in the haunts of the burkers in our city fastened 
in a sitting position in a chair with their feet immersed 
in warm water, an important artery cut, and slowly 
bleeding to death. All that winter the community 
was in a stare bordering on panic ; in the evening la- 
dies and children never left their homes alone unless 
accompanied by one or more able-bodied male attend- 



144 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

ants, though but going a block or less away to church 
or to a neighbor's, and their protectors were always 
provided with stout bludgeons or other means of de- 
fence. I recollect going out in the evening during 
that exciting period with my father occasionally to 
church on the next corner, and his carrying a stout 
club of hickory cord-wood at such times, taken from 
the convenient pile in our cellar (there was no coal 
used in those days), and when the congregation filed 
out into the street at the conclusion of the services 
I observed others of the male attendants similarly 
equipped. I recollect that the colored population 
were even more excited, none of them then being so 
bold as to leave home after dusk. The other day I 
asked a venerable old Ethiopian, whom I have known 
from boyhood, when his aunt was a domestic in my 
parents' house in Liberty Street, whether he recollect- 
ed the 'burking' affair; he answered, almost to the 
verge, apparently, of trembling, that he did fully re- 
member, and that the reminiscence was painful." 

He adds : 

" This reminds me that our old colored people, those 
who first beheld the light of day in the closing years 
of the last century, have nearly all gone to their final 
resting-place ; I know of but one or two of them left. 
A few weeks ago an old ' uncle ' of that race, well up 
in the nineties, respected by all who knew him, and a 
resident of the city from his birth, died in Cedar Street, 
around the corner from my office, and an old ' aunty,' 
who had lived here from birth, cied only last week 
near by in Nassau Street, equally respected and but a 
year or two younger. I observe also now and then in 
this vicinity one venerable '' aurity ' tottering along 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK I45 

through her old haunts, who has nearly approached 
the century of her existence. I receive visits quarter- 
yearly or oftener from an aged ' uncle ' who resides in 
our suburbs, and was a slave of my great-grandfather 
and afterwards of my grandfather. He was manumit- 
ted under the State law in 1827, and is now in his 
ninety-ninth year; sight, memory, and hearing seem- 
ingly unimpaired, he has a walk and general vigor 
equal to most men of sixty ! I know of none of our 
race now living who have attained so great an age by 
a decade of years, and think their longevity must be 
the greater of the two." 

The question of longevity is a difficult one to settle 
in the absence of reliable data as to the colored race, 
but I am inclined to think that the average is in favor 
of the white people. It is not many days since a hale 
old gentleman of ninety- four, representative of one 
of our oldest Knickerbocker families, came from his 
home, four miles beyond the Post-office, to have a talk 
with Felix Oldboy, and I am in search of another non- 
agenarian on the west side who has been reported 
to me as having a much livelier interest in the proper 
training of his whiskers and his general appearance 
than in any antiquities, local or otherwise. I have 
known many of the old slaves in my boyhood, but do 
not know of any burial of blacks in our cemeteries, or 
of any negro graves in our city limits. In many parts 
of New Jersey, and out on Long Island, there are old 
"slave" burying-grounds — for the most part pictures 
of desolation and neglect — but the old negro burying- 
grounds set apart by the city seem to have been largely 
succeeded by the potter's field. In a crowded, growing 
city the living push aside the dead, sometimes almost 



146 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

rudely, and therefore I am always glad to see a city 
graveyard and to acknowledge its humanizing effect. 

I have been led into this chapter on our city's dead 
because only yesterday I heard a dispute between offi- 
cials and members of an old city church in reference 
to a proposition to build houses upon the burial-plot 
at the side of the edifice. The plot is a small one, cov- 
ering only three or four building-lots, but it is all fur- 
rowed with graves and gray with granite headstones, 
and the inscriptions on the stones tell the history of 
the first half-century of a pioneer church. Some one 
asked me what I thought of the proposition, and I 
said: "Restore God's-acre; make it beautiful with 
green turf, fragrant shrubs, and sweet flowers ; invite 
the sunshine to touch its graves and the birds of the 
air to come and sing among its trees, and then let it 
preach its own sermon. No orator in the pulpit will 
be so eloquent as that little church-yard. It will tell 
to all who pass by that the sleepers fought a good fight 
and died in the faith." 

A little uncle of mine, who was only five years of 
age when God called him, sleeps somewhere in the 
church-yard of old Trinity. The first-born of the flock, 
his little feet crossed over Jordan all alone, and went 
pattering up the hills on the other side and into the 
Promised Land, while his father and mother tarried 
behind in tears in the wilderness. So often I think of 
him as I pass by, and wonder what he looked like on 
earth, and how he will look by-and-by. Perhaps I am 
the only one now, in all the world of life, who remem- 
bers. In the same way, to all of us, the rows of graves, 
hemmed in by busy haunts of life, are so many silent 
but effective preachers. 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 147 



CHAPTER XIII 

ECHOES OF SWEET SINGERS — OLD THEATRES ON BROADWAY — AN AC- 
CIDENTAL THOROUGHFARE — EVOLUTION OF UNION SQUARE — A 
STREET THAT WAS NOT OPENED — HISTORY OF A CHURCH BELL 

An unknown correspondent writes gently to chide 
Mr. Oldboy for not mentioning " Palmo's Opera- 
house, which preceded Burton's in Chambers Street, 
and Thompson's famous restaurant, which was quite 
as popular as Taylor's," and situated near it. He 
adds: "When Mr. O. gets above Howard Street, he 
forgets to mention the original Olympic Theatre 
(Mitchell's), which was a very popular little box ; also 
Wood's Minstrels, which, though later, were quite as 
much liked as Christy's. He also fails to mention 
Wallack's Theatre, near Broome Street, where they 
had a splendid company." 

Pcccavi, especially in forgetting Thompson's, where 
many a time and oft the inner boy and man was 
sweetly refreshed. As a matter of fact, I do not re- 
call Palmo's Opera-house, but I have the liveliest kind 
of remembrance of Burton's Theatre, and "Aminidab 
Sleek " is as vivid a portraiture in memory as it was 
in life the first time that I beheld it. Fancy going 
down to Chambers Street to meet the beauty and 
fashion of the metropolis at its most select theatre ; 
and yet it was only yesterday, or not longer ago than 
the day before ! As to opera, I first fell in love with it 



148 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

at Castle Garden, when a youth, and certainly I never 
got as much delight out of a dollar as came to me 
from that amount of money expended in the purchase 
of a ticket which admitted me to both a matinee and 
evening performance. The artists were Alboni, Son- 
tag, etc., and the opera for the evening was " Lucrezia 
Borgia." Since then I have never entered Castle Gar- 
den without recalling the wonderful effect of "II se- 
greto " as sung by Alboni, which roused the vast 
audience that filled the great floor and galleries to 
wild enthusiasm. Women as well as men rose to 
their feet, and the encores were like an echo of Niag- 
ara. Somehow I cannot get as much value out of $5 
invested to-day in opera, and I really do not think the 
fault is wholly my own. 

It is over sixty years since the Garcia troupe gave 
New York its first taste of Italian opera. They made 
their appearance at the Park Theatre in " II Barbiere 
di Seviglia," and carried the town by storm. No won- 
der, for Mile. Garcia, afterwards known the world over 
as the great Malibran, made her debut here at the 
time, though but seventeen years of age. New York 
recognized her genius, and laid its tribute of praise 
at her feet, crowding the old Park Theatre to listen 
delightedly to the same opera for thirty successive 
nights. The queer part of Malibran's experience here 
was her subsequent appearance at the Bowery Theatre 
in English opera. One can hardly fancy the opera 
flourishing at the new theatre opened in 1826 on the 
site of the old Bull's Head, and it did not succeed. 
The queen of song drew large audiences, and was paid 
at the rate of $600 a night, but after three weeks the 
attempt was abandoned, and the Bowery was turned 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 151 

over to the legitimate drama. It was after this failure 
that Palmo opened his tasteful little opera-house with a 
choice troupe of artists, and for a time achieved the suc- 
cess that he deserved. But at last he was compelled to 
abandon the enterprise. The Astor Place Opera-house 
was an operatic failure from the time of its completion 
in 1846, and four years later had been converted into 
a rhenagerie which the boys delighted to visit, and 
into which I stole surreptitiously to save my dignity 
as a college student. The Academy of Music opened 
in 1855 with a blare of trumpets, and on that site have 
since been witnessed an infinite variety of entertain- 
ments and performances, many of which were not 
contemplated in the original projection of the institu- 
tion. 

My correspondent halts me again at Canal Street, 
and as we stand here I recall having read that Trinity 
Parish once offered to the congregation of another 
creed — Lutheran, I believe — a plot of several acres just 
where we stand, and that it was refused by the church 
authorities on the ground that they did not think it 
worth fencing in. It was all low, swampy ground here- 
abouts at the opening of the present century, tenanted 
by frogs and water -snakes, and covered by brambles. 
The boys and girls skated on the brook that flowed 
from the Collect Pond to the North River, eighty years 
ago, and went across it into the marshes to gather wild- 
flowers and berries. The people who were gray-head- 
ed when I was a boy have told me many an exciting 
adventure they had in the marshes when the century 
was young, and they usually wound up with a reflec- 
tion that I caught myself making the other day — that 
if they had only known how rapidly the city was to 



A TOUR AROUND NEV/ YORK 



grow, they could have made themselves millionaires 
by investing a "mere song" in real estate. 

There was one building on Broadway, below Canal 
Street, which I well remember, and which I should 
not have forgotten to mention — Masonic Hall, cov- 
ering the site of the stores now known as 314 and 316 

Broadway. The 
building was erected 
in 1826 by the Ma- 
sonic fraternity, and 
was, for its time, an 
imposing affair. The 
saloon on the second 
floor, 100 feet long, 
50 feet wide, and 25 
feet in height, finish- 
ed in the richest style 
of Gothic architec- 
ture, and intended to 
imitate the Chapel 
of Henry VIII. in 
London, was consid- 
ered the most ele- 
gant apartment of 
the kind in the United States. It was used for public 
meetings, concerts, and balls, and as such I remember 
it. The building was then known as Gothic Hall, hav- 
ing passed out of the hands of the Masonic fraternity, 
in consequence of the serious and prolonged troubles 
growing out of the " Morgan" excitement. Gothic 
Hall stood between Pearl and Duane streets, and 
towered high above the small frame buildings on 
either side. These streets did not always bear their 




A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 1 53 

present names. Duane Street was formerly known as 
Barley Street, because of a famous brewery situated 
just west of Broadway, and Pearl Street was known 
as Magazine Street, because it led up from the maga- 
zine on an island in the Collect Pond. Worth Street 
was known as Anthony Street a generation ago, and 
its first name, Catharine Street, is still perpetuated in 
Catharine Lane. Franklin Street was formerly known 
as Sugarloaf Street. Even Broadway at this point 
has not always been thus designated. The lower por- 
tion of our great thoroughfare has been known from 
time immemorial as "The Broadway" and "Broadway 
Street," but from the City Hall Park to Astor Place it 
was called "St. George" or "Great George" Street 
up to the close of the last century, and still later it 
was commonly spoken of as the " Middle Road." 

The original Olympic Theatre was at 442 Broad- 
way, and later was known as the old Circus. It stood 
next door to Tattersall's. The later Olympic Theatre, 
which was first known as Laura Keene's, was situated 
between Houston and Bleecker streets. Wallack's 
Theatre, in 1853, was located at 485 Broadway. It 
had been known previously as Brougham's Lyceum. 
The Winter Garden Theatre succeeded Tripler Hall 
at 677 Broadway, and for a good while was a favorite 
place of amusement. A number of hotels, in addition 
to the Metropolitan and St. Nicholas, congregated in 
this neighborhood. On the east side were the Ameri- 
can, the Union Hotel, the Collamore, and the Carroll 
House; and on the west side the new City Hotel, be- 
tween Canal and Howard streets, the Prescott House, 
New York Hotel, and Astor Place Hotel. These 
were the hotels that marked the transition period be- 



154 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

tween the down -town houses, which sought still to 
make the City Hall Park the hotel centre, and the 
erection of vast marble caravansaries beyond the Bow- 
ery cross-roads. For it is not much more than the 
flight of a generation since Franconi erected his Hip- 
podrome tents upon the vacant lots in the rear of 
what is now the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and we boys 
went "out of town," as we thought it then, to see his 
imported curiosities. And no hotel-keeper of the day 
had summoned up sufficient courage to charge more 
than one dollar and a half for a day's board and lodg- 
ing. One dollar a day had been the tariff at the 
Astor House, and an advance of 50 per cent, was all 
that conscience would allow. The old-fashioned hos- 
tlery at Broadway and Twenty -second Street, with 
broad verandas, shaded by great oaks and elms, which 
was the stopping- place of all the fast trotters of the 
day, would have blushed crimson over its clean white 
front had it ventured to present such a bill as the 
modern Boniface presents with a smile. 

A man whom I often heard spoken of when a boy 
was Stephen B. Munn, a large property -holder in the 
vicinity of Broadway, Grand, and Broome streets, 
whose office was at the corner of Grand Street, and 
who had built, on Broadway above Broome, the two 
best houses standing in the neighborhood, which were 
very superior buildings for the times. In one of these 
he lived for a number of years, and he had for neigh- 
bors many of the sons of old settlers. On the block 
above were the houses of Dr. Livingston, and of Dr. 
Henry Mott, father of Dr. Valentine Mott. Robert 
Halliday and a branch of the Beekman family were 
also neighbors, and above Prince Street stood a hand- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 1 55 

some residence which had been erected by John Jacob 
Astor, and was occupied by his son-in-law, Walter 
Langdon. Opposite, in a modest brick house, hved 
at one time James Fenimore Cooper, the noveHst. I 
remember his personal appearance, for in literature he 
was one of my chief heroes ; the other was Washing- 
ton Irving. Personally there was a marked contrast 
between the two, Mr. Cooper being as robust and ath- 
letic as Mr. Irving appeared delicate and of artistic 
fibre, but each somehow came up to my boyish ideal. 
They were devout Episcopalians, and always attended 
the diocesan conventions as delegates, and it was my 
delight to sit up in the gallery and watch their move- 
ments, and wonder how it must seem to be able to en- 
tertain the world with Rip Van Winkle, and Harvey 
Birch, the spy. 

There was not much of Broadway above Union 
Square at that time. In fact, this great highway, des- 
tined to be trodden, as Horatio Seymour once told 
me, by more people than ever migrated through any 
other avenue of travel on the globe, was in reality an 
accident. Originally it was supposed that the city's 
main artery of travel would turn to the east of the 
commons and follow the old Boston Road. In point 
of fact, provision was made to that end. Park Row 
and Chatham Street, in connection with the lower 
part of Broadway and the Bowery, formed the original 
highway leading from the city into the interior, long 
known as the High Road to Boston. Business for a 
long time insisted upon turning to the east of Broad- 
way at the City Hall Park, and owners of property 
were determined to keep the west side sacred to resi- 
dences. But it was not so to be. Pearl Street ceased 



156 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

to absorb the dry-goods trade half a century ago, and 
when A. T. Stewart spread his dry -goods nets on the 
" shilHng side " of Broadway, that settled it. 

But no one dreamed, a generation ago, that Union 
Square would be invaded by traffic, either in this cen- 
tury or in the next. It was a veritable paradise of ex- 
clusives. Its solid brown-stone and brick mansions 
frowned forbiddingly upon the frowzy little park in 
front, which they had found an unfenced triangle of 
waste land at the junction of Bowery Lane and the Mid- 
dle or Bloomingdale Road, but which they had fenced 
in and planted with trees for their exclusive use. Here 
dwelt a solid race of men, and they meant to remain 
so. A single church stood on the west side, the 
Church of the Puritans, of which Dr. Cheever was 
pastor. It was a headquarters of abolitionism, and 
more than once I stole in there at night, when a col- 
lege student, prepared to hear something "perfectly 
awful," which, as a matter of course, I did not hear! 
The late Frederic de Peyster told me that when he 
came to live in the house in which he died, in Univer- 
sity Place, near Thirteenth Street, there was, but one 
house which obstructed his view of the East River, 
and none that rose between him and the Hudson. 
That was only fifty years ago, and yet within that 
time a city of quiet homes rose about him and gave 
place to a dusty, noisy city of business. At the time 
of his death his was the only house in the block that 
had not been converted to business purposes, and 
from the outside it appeared lonesome enough. 

The country-seats which had adorned " Sandy Hill, 
at the upper end of Broadway," and the " Minetta 
water" beyond, rapidly disappeared before the level- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW VORK 1 57 

ling hand of improvement, as soon as Union Square 
became fashionable. The Elliot estate passed into 
the hands of Captain Robert R. Randall, who in turn 
deeded it to the Sailors' Snug Harbor. It is on a 
portion of this land that Stewart built his up-town 
store. Adjoining was the farm of stout old Hendrick 
Brevoort, through whose homestead, between Broad- 
way and the Bowery, the new Eleventh Street was 
planned to run. When the opening of this street be- 
came desirable, Mr. Brevoort resisted with so much of 
ancient Dutch stubbornness that the improvement 
was abandoned. An ordinance for the removal of the 
house was passed as late as 1849, ^^^ ^^^ venerable 
occupant refused to remove, and it was rescinded. 
In his palmy days, Mr. Tweed, the head of the De- 
partment of Public Works, was represented as sitting 
at his desk with a map of the city's most desirable 
street openings spread before him. In settling dis- 
putes as to candidates and offices, it was said that this 
renowned statesman would compromise matters beau- 
tifully by means of his map. As a sop to disappointed 
ambition he would remark : " No, I cannot let you go 
to Albany this winter, but here is something which is 
almost as good. You can have this street opening 
and make a good thing out of it." At one time 
Tweed determined to cut Eleventh Street through 
from Broadway to Fourth Avenue, or make Grace 
Church pay handsomely. The vestry thereupon met 
and challenged Tweed to go ahead. He never did. 
Trinity Parish, by the way, presented a silent ar- 
gument against the proposition to cut Pine Street 
through the old church-yard. It built a monument to 
the unknown dead of the Continental Army who per- 



158 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

ished in British prison pens in this city. The pedestal 
is all right, but the public have waited a long while for 
the "old Continental" in white marble, who was to 
stand under the brown-stone canopy and complete the 
picture. 

The old farm-house of Henry Spingler — built orig- 
inally by Elias Brevoort — stood within the limits of 
the present Union Square, and the twenty -two acres 
of the estate lay west of the Bowery Road. The lat- 
ter road, then known as Bowery Lane, curved some- 
what in passing the Square, and at Sixteenth Street 
turned and pursued a straight course to Bloomingdale. 
In order to join this course, the direction of Broadway 
was changed at Tenth Street, and a junction effected 
on the other side of the Square. One of the persons 
most actively engaged in the improvements connected 
with Union Square and its neighborhood was the late 
Samuel B. Ruggles, a resident and large property- 
holder in the vicinity. It was from this court -end of 
the city that Grace Church drew its large and wealthy 
congregation. For forty years that beautiful edifice 
has been the pride of all who loved Broadway, for it 
crowned magnificently its upper end, and stood senti- 
nel above its Sunday stillness at a time when hand- 
some church buildings were the exceptions to the rule. 
Its roll of membership was at one time, and no distant 
one, a roll of the most select society of which New 
York could boast. Its rector, Dr. Taylor, was not 
much of a pulpit orator, but he was a great social 
power, and its sexton, the immensely impressive Brown, 
was society's chief oracle. One by one the neighbor- 
ing churches have migrated, and now Grace Church 
stands her ground almost alone, and yet with a full 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 1 59 

congregation. The sons of the fathers follow in the 
path of their sires, and it is a good sign that it is so. 

To me, as the city grows larger, busier, and more 
cosmopolitan, one of the things I most miss is the 
sound of the old familiar church bell. The city was 
drenched with silence on Sundays when I was a boy, 
and there was no sound to break the stillness except 
the clangor of the bells. At nine and at two they 
summoned us to Sunday-school ; at half-past ten and 
at three they called the people to church. I suppose 
they ring as usual now, but the rumble of street-cars, 
the continual rush of other vehicles, the rattle and 
roar of the elevated lines, and all the modern combina- 
tion of noises comes between their music and my ear, 
and sometimes the Sunday of my boyhood seems alto- 
gether lost. And this reminds me that New York, as 
well as Philadelphia, is owner of an historic bell. It 
was cast in Amsterdam in 1731, and it is said that 
many citizens cast in quantities of silver coin at the 
fusing of the metals. The bell was a legacy of Col. 
Abraham de Peyster, who died while the Middle 
Dutch Church, on Nassau Street, was building, and di- 
rected in his will that the bell should be procured from 
Holland at his expense. When the city was captured 
by the British, and the church was turned into a riding- 
school for the dragoons (Johnny Battin has told me 
often how he used to practise his troop there), the bell 
was taken down by the De Peyster family and secreted 
until shortly after the evacuation of the city, when it 
was restored to its original position. It never rang in 
honor of British oppression, but was patriotic to the 
core. When the church was sold to the Government 
for a post-ofifice, the bell was removed to the church 




THE MIDDLE DUTCH CHURCH 



on Ninth Street, near Broadway, and thirty years ago, 
when the building changed hands, it found another 
resting-place in the church on Lafayette Place. Now 
it has made some other migration. But, of right, it 
should pass to a place of honor in the rooms of the 
Historical Society. A bell with such ancestry and 
history (and he who reads ancient Dutch may read its 
story in the inscription) deserves to be tenderly cher- 
ished by a city that has preserved too few of the me- 
mentos of its eventful story. 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK l6l 



CHAPTER XIV 

SUMMER BREEZES AT THE BATTERY — A SOLDIER OF THE LAST CENTURY 
— KNICKERBOCKERS AND THEIR HOMES — AN OLD-TIME STROLL UP 
BROADWAY 

The coolest spot in New York in the dog-days is the 
Battery Park. From some point in the compass a 
breeze is always blowing among its elms, and the elec- 
tric lights bathe it in perpetual moonshine. Even on 
the most quiet of nights the swell of passing steamers 
makes a ripple of tinkling waters against its granite 
front, and there is no lack of pleasant companionship 
to those who recall the feet that in old times pressed 
its gravelled walks. Men whose hair is beginning to 
grow white recall the day when they looked up with 
pride, not unmingled with awe, to the old Knicker- 
bockers who loved to walk here in the cool of the 
afternoon, and who showed the gentleness of their 
blood by always having a kindly word and the bene- 
diction of a touch of the hand upon the head for us 
who w'ere children then. " ' Who were the Knicker- 
bockers,' }-ou ask, Mrs. Fribble? No one, my dear 
madam, in whom you have the slightest interest." 

Let us pass on. 

I remember a dear old lady who loved to talk about 
this park, and tell of the people she had met here and 
the scenes she had witnessed ; and of these, one man 
and one morning's adventure stood out most promi- 



l62 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

nent. A little thing in white, her nurse had brought 
her to the park to witness a civic anniversary, and the 
crowd prevented her from obtaining a good view of 
the pageant. As, with a child's impatience, she tried 
to press through the throng, a tall and handsome el- 
derly gentleman, clad in a suit of black velvet and with 
a dress sword at his side, stooped down to her, inquired 
pleasantly about her trouble, and then lifted her upon 
his shoulder and held her there until the procession 
had passed. Delighted with what she saw, the child 
thought little about the gentleman who had brushed 
away her trouble, but thanked him when he released 
her with a kiss and set her down upon the ground. 
As he moved away, the nurse, in an awe-struck voice, 
asked the child if she knew whose arms had held her, 
and then told her that it was President Washington. 
The little eyes watched him as he walked quietly away, 
and never forgot his stately appearance. I think that 
dear old Mrs. Atterbury was more proud of having 
been the heroine of this incident than of all the social 
honors that afterwards fell to her lot. 

At the Battery the ancient Dutch progenitors of 
the city of New Amsterdam laid the first foundations 
of a metropolis for the New World. But the pioneers 
from Holland were not unanimously of the opinion 
that it was wise to build their city at this point. 
A large number of them thought it would be more 
prudent to pitch their tents at Spuyten Duyvil ; there 
they had found lovely meadow lands with running 
water, affording an excellent opportunity to dig and 
equip canals, and the sight was so shut in by adjacent 
hills as to be hidden from the eyes of foreign advent- 
urers who might find entrance in the harbor below. 



r: 




THE FORT AT THE BATTERY. 



It was not the Indians whom the Dutch feared, but 
the Enghsh. These latter rapacious adventurers were 
then pushing their expeditions in all directions, and 
while it was feared that they might turn their guns 
upon the colony of the Dutch East India Company if 
it was located at the southern end of the island of the 
Manhadoes, it was believed that they would sail quietly 
away again if they found the place bearing the appear- 
ance of being uninhabited. These ideas nearly pre- 
vailed with the first settlers, but after an appeal to 
national pride, wiser counsels had their way, and it was 
resolved to begin operations at the point which is now 



164 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

the Battery, All opposition was silenced as soon as 
it was demonstrated that a canal could be dug there 
at once, running through what is now Broad Street, 
and ending at the city wall, the present Wall Street. 
This at once lent the charm of home to the chosen 
site, and all was peace. 

Sitting here, with every little wave of the harbor 
dancing in the sunlight just as it did forty years ago 
when I played under the elms, with no signs warning 
one to keep ofT the grass, I recall the Battery as I first 
knew it. The park was not then one-half its present 
size. There was no sea-wall. The tide rippled un- 
checked along the rocks and sand that made the beach. 
The walks were unkempt, and the benches were only 
rough wooden affairs. But the breeze, the fresh sea air, 
the whispering leaves, the orioles and bluebirds, and 
the shade were there, and to the boys of the period its 
attractions were Elysian. Castle Garden, then a frown- 
ing fortress still thought capable of service, was reach- 
ed by a wooden bridge, and the salt-water lapped its 
massive foundations on all sides. The American In- 
stitute Fair was then held within its walls, and on 
these occasions the boys explored it from the flag-staff 
to the magazine, and held high carnival there. 

A number of the Knickerbocker merchants and law- 
yers lived in the neighborhood of the Bowling Green 
and the Battery a generation ago. Stephen Whitney 
had his home on Bowling Green Place. Robert Goelet 
lived on State Street, and his brother Peter at No. 32 
Broadway. The Rhinelanders had recently removed 
up-town to Washington Square, the Schermerhorns to 
Great Jones Street, and the Leroys to Lafayette Place, 
but a large number of the old families of the city still 




THE OLD MCCOMB MANSION 



lingered around lower Broadway and the adjacent 
streets, and the Battery was always the terminus of 
their afternoon walk, whether they lived in its vicinity 
or as far up-town as the centre of fashion, at Bleecker 
and Bond streets. The day's parade of belles and 
beaux led past Trinity and to the old trysting-place, 
under the trees by the water-side. 

Stephen Whitney, who was one of New York's few 
millionaires in his day, was a well-known character in 
the young metropolis. Had he lived a generation 
later, " Uncle Stephen," as all the young men called 
him, would have been a power in " the Street." As 



l66 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

it was, he knew enough to hold the money he had 
made, and his shrewdness was proverbial. When Ste- 
phen Whitney was buried from old Trinity, his was 
the last Knickerbocker house below Broadway. His 
house was closed, and the current of business buried 
it under the waves. The old man had dreamed that 
some day commerce would find it more convenient to 
occupy the upper end of the island, with Harlem River 
for a ship-canal and Long Island Sound for the en- 
trance and exit of its fleet, and so the Battery would 
again be surrounded by comfortable homes and echo 
to the feet of the descendants of the people he had 
known. If his ghost ever walks in that direction, it 
must shiver while it anathematizes with voiceless fury 
the elevated railroad structure that defaces the park. 

Was it yesterday that I sat on one of the benches 
in the old Battery Park and listened with rapt atten- 
tion to Johnny Battin, as he told me of the scenes he 
had witnessed from that point when he was a young 
man and wore the red coat of King George. For 
" Johnny," as everybody called him, had been a cornet 
of horse in the British Army, and had served Lord 
Howe as bearer of despatches both to England and 
many a point in the colonies. He had known An- 
dre, Burgoyne, Clinton, and all the British generals, 
had fought in the battles of Long Island and Fort 
Washington, and was the last survivor of those desper- 
ate encounters. A man of warm heart, his sympathies 
at last went over to the side of the colonists, and when 
peace was declared he made his home here, sought out 
a pretty Jersey girl for a wife, and made her a happy 
woman for five-and-sixty years. " Johnny " Battin was 
ninety-four years old when I was ten, and he lived to 



A TOUR AROUND NEW VORK 167 

be over one hundred years of age, and then went 
quietly to sleep like a little child. Until he had passed 
the century mile-post he never passed a day when he 
did not walk from his hosiery shop (he lived in the 
same building) in Greenwich Street, near Warren, to 
the Battery, I can see him now in the old-fashioned 
cut-away coat of drab, with knee-breeches and gray 
worsted stockings and low shoes with silver buckles, 
which he always wore. His hair was white and long, 
and gathered in a knot behind. There was a snow- 
white frill in his shirt, and his neckerchief was white 
also, and ample. In his hand he carried a substantial 
cane, which he scarcely needed even when he had long 
passed ninety, so erect was he and soldierly. 

" Felix," said Johnny Battin, " I like to come here 
to the Battery, and think of all the changes I have 
seen hereabouts in the last seventy years. Yes, it 
was seventy years ago since I saw the British flag 
hoisted on the battery that stood back there by the 
Bowling Green. We camped up in East Broadway 
the night General Putnam evacuated these barracks 
and stole up along the Hudson to Fort Washington. 
That night a terrible fire broke out by the river-side 
here, and swept up Broadway, carrying away Trinity 
Church and nearly every other building as far as St. 
Paul's. It was a terrible conflagration, and lit up 
everything almost as clear as day. The houses were 
nearly all of wood, and by daybreak more than a third 
of the city was in ashes. The brick houses on Broad- 
way, opposite the Bowling Green, were all that were 
left standing, and there Lord Howe made his head- 
quarters. They are fine houses still, with marble 
mantel-pieces, and huge mirrors, and great mahogany 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



doors. If you go into the second one some time they 
will show you the room that Andre occupied for his 
office when he was adjutant-general, and you will see 
a slit in the door into which I used to slip his de- 
spatches. I was sorry for Andre, but he knew what he 
was about, and took his chances. In the first house 
they used to have grand balls, and Lord Howe and 




TRINITY CHURCH 
The first edifice. Destroyed in the fire of 1776 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 1 69 

Lord Percy and the rest of the noblemen who were 
fighting against your forefathers, my boy, held a sort 
of colonial court there which seemed to bewitch the 
royalist belles. Yes, and they were beautiful, very 
beautiful — but all dust and ashes now, my boy. 

" After the war was ended they swept away the 
batteries — for there was more than one — and the bar- 
racks. Then they built a fine large mansion of brick 
where they had stood. It faced the Bowling Green, 
and looked up Broadway. The view from the windows 
was superb, for the ground was rising, and a long, low 
flight of steps led up to the main entrance. Washing- 
ton was here then as President, and this was called the 
Government House, and was intended as his residence. 
But the Capitol was removed to Philadelphia, and then 
to Washington, and Washington never occupied our 
White House. For a few years it was used as a hos- 
pital, and then it was sold, and the block of brick 
houses was erected there, in one of which Mr. Whitney 
lives. 

" It looks like a long way over to Staten Island, but 
I remember when the bay was frozen over solid from 
the Battery to what is now the Quarantine grounds. 
Our troops crossed over on the ice from Staten Island, 
and dragged their cannon with them. I carried the 
orders from Lord Howe, and it startled them, I can 
tell you ; but they came through all right. Did your 
grandmother never tell you that she had crossed on 
the ice, too ? Let me see ; it was in the hard winter of 
1780 when the troops marched over — a terrible winter, 
when many poor people starved or froze to death here, 
and it was thirty years later that the bay was frozen 
over solidly the second time. My wife went in a 



I70 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



sleigh to the Quarantine station, and she took your 
grandmother with her. When they reached Staten 
Island they found the snow was so deep that the peo- 
ple had carved a road out under an arch of snow. So 
many sleighs crossed that a man built a half-way house 
— just a shanty, you know — on the ice, and made quite 
a little sum by selling refreshments to the travellers. 







RUINS OF TRINITY CHURCH 



" I have seen a great many changes, my boy, in sev- 
enty long years, and I am more than ninety-four. But 
it has been a pleasant and a happy life, and its happi- 
est part has been lived in my little home on Greenwich 
Street. It won't be long now before I am called to 
meet the King of kings, but you will live to see 
greater changes than any I have known. Love your 
country, boy, and love your home. It's an old man's 
advice and the secret of happiness." 

I take Johnny Battin's hand as he rises, and we pass 
out of the wooden gate and up Broadway, He knows 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 171 

everybody that we meet, and all have a courteous word 
for him. Some of the great men of the day are on the 
promenade. Michael Hoffman, the Naval Officer, and 
Surveyor Elijah F. Purdy pass arm in arm, and I look 
up to them with awe as mighty politicians. Of " Cor- 
neel " and " Jake " Vanderbilt, who have a steamboat 
office at 34 Broadway, I have far less fear, for they 
live on Staten Island, and seem to be but ordinary 
men. Mayor Havemeyer is a fine-looking man, and 
walks briskly up to his residence on Vandam Street. 
Near the City Hotel, a great hostlery then, we pass 
" Tommy " Stanford, of the book-publishing firm of 
Stanford & Swords, on Broadway, near Cedar Street, 
and he stops to have a chat. A decidedly homely man, 
he has pleasant manners and a shrewd business look. 
He knows my father, and pats my head. As we leave 
him, Johnny Battin points to the old Dutch Church on 
Nassau Street, and tells me that he used it as a riding- 
school seventy years ago. It is a wonderful place to 
me, open from 8 A.M. to 7 P.M., and sending out its 
great Northern mail every afternoon at three, its great 
Eastern mail at the same hour, except on Sunday, and 
its Southern mail every night, and opening its doors 
on Sundays for an hour in the morning and afternoon. 
When we pass St. Paul's Church the old British sol- 
dier takes off his three-cornered hat before the monu- 
ment to Major-general Montgomery, and tells me of 
the pageant that marked the bringing back of the dead 
hero's body. " I have often seen President Washing- 
ton come here to church," he says, " and he walked in 
very quietly, without any display, and when he was 
once in his pew he paid no attention to anything but 
his prayer-book and the clergyman." And then the 




^ 



CITY HOTEL, BROADWAY. 1812 



old man tells me of the church, as he saw it first in 
summer, surrounded by pleasant fields, and with noth- 
ing between its front porch and the river but a stretch 
of greensward ; for. though St. Paul looks out upon 
Broadway from his lofty niche, the church itself turns 
its back upon that bustling thoroughfare. But I am 
more interested in his story of the suicide's grave that 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



^73 



lies directly under our feet. A son of a former rector 
of Trinity took his own life, and they would not bury 
him in the church-yard, but laid his poor, mutilated 

body at rest be- 
neath the sidewalk, 
just outside of the 
church's gate. I 
will never forget 
this as I pass the 
spot, though ten 
thousand other feet 
pass lightly over the 
dead man's uncon- 
secrated ashes. 

A group of men 
stand on the front 
steps of the Astor 
House, and I look 
at them with a vast 
deal of reverence. 
It is currently re- 
ported among my 
i school-mates that 
;. the guests at their 
'' granite hostelry, 
which rises high 
above all surround- 
ing buildings with 
the sole exception 
of St. Paul's, have 
to pay one dollar a 
day for their entertainment. It is an enormous sum 
to expend for board and lodging, and my boyish mind 




MONUMENT TO GENERAL MONTGOMERY 



174 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

is lost in contemplation of the amount of luxurious 
ease which it is possible to purchase with such a price. 

My little feet trot along in syncopated rhythm with 
the nonagenarian's slow pace as we leave Broadway and 
turn down Warren Street, and it seems almost a long 
enough journey to have afforded us a pretext for taking 
a Kipp & Brown stage. But Johnny is an old soldier, 
and it is a matter of daily dut}^ with him to take his 
"constitutional." At last, however, we have reached 
Greenwich Street. There, in front of the modest little 
store, hangs a gigantic wooden stocking in glaring 
plaid coloring, and in the doorway stands Johnny Bat- 
tin's son Joseph, who was the first of the city militia- 
men to grasp the hand of Lafayette when he landed at 
the Battery on his second visit to this country, and — 

" Papa, what's the matter — are you dreaming?" It 
is my little twelve-year-old son who is tugging at my 
hand and calling to me, and we are standing at the 
foot of the stairs that lead up to the Warren Street 
station of the elevated railroad. 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 175 



CHAPTER XV 

LIFE AT EIGHTY -SEVEN YEARS — MEMORIES OF ROBERT FULTON — 
WHAT THE FIRST STEAMBOAT LOOKED LIKE — SUNDAY IN GREEN- 
WICH VILLAGE — A PRIMITIVE CONGREGATION — FLIRTING IN THE 
GALLERIES 

My friend the school trustee is eighty-seven years 
old in March. His hair is white and his frame is a 
little bent, but his cheek is still " like a rose in the 
snow," and his heart is as that of a little child. My 
little boy said to me once : " Papa, when grandpa gets 
to be real old, he will grow down and be as small as 
me, and then we can play together, can't we?" I do 
not know from what source the little child, who had 
not yet been graduated into trousers, had drawn the 
strange idea that as men grew older they grew down 
into childhood physically ; but I have thought there 
was not a little of good philosophy in it, and the inci- 
dent came back to me as I marked the bowed shoul- 
ders of my old friend, and noted how he was growing 
into a beautiful childhood spiritually. The late Ho- 
ratio Seymour said to me, at the age of seventy, when 
his friends were urging him to allow his name to be 
used once again as a Presidential candidate, " I have 
only one thing to ask of the world now — to be allowed 
to grow old as gracefully as I can." Then he went on 
to speak of the reluctance that many showed to admit 
the march of time, and of his own eagerness to be 



176 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

relegated to the rank of adviser, and be relieved from 
active duty. 

As I write, there come back to me memories of 
that hospitable home on the Deerfield Hills, in which 
stood the clock that had ticked off the hours to Bur- 
goyne when he was a captive in the Schuyler mansion, 
the favorite chair of Bishop White, and a hundred 
other historical relics of colonial and Revolutionary 
days ; and I wonder if it will be amiss ior me to say, 
apart from partisanship, and after close knowledge of 
many public men, that Horatio Seymour was the most 
complete Christian gentleman I ever knew? The pen 
that once pursued him bitterly in political life should 
be allowed to scratch this laurel on the rough bowlder 
that marks his grave. 

My friend the school trustee was born in this city, 
on the eastern edge of what was then known as Green- 
wich Village. The house in which he was born stood 
on a hill not far from the lower end of Sixth Avenue, 
and it had no neighbors in sight except on the road 
that led up to the little hamlet on the banks of the 
Hudson, for which Admiral Sir Peter Warren had 
borrowed a name from England's home for veteran 
sailors when he set up his baronial mansion here. 
The family had just moved from their old homestead 
on Duane Street, near Chatham, and their friends 
deemed them crazy for going out into the wilderness 
to live. This house disappeared long since, but the 
frame dwelling to which my old friend brought his 
bride sixty years ago, and which he had erected, still 
stands in Jones Street, the oldest residence in the 
Ninth Ward. The house cannot tell its story, but it 
is like a revelation to talk with the white-haired pa- 




SIR PETER warren's HOUSE, GREENWICH VILLAGE 



triarch who built it. He has seen Fulton and Aaron 
Burr, and talked with them ; he remembers when the 
friction match, anthracite coal, and gas were intro- 
duced in this city ; when the first stage began to run, 
and the first steamboat ploughed its slow way up the 
Hudson. He was a man of mature years at the time 
when the first locomotive ran out of New York, and 
the telegraph and the sewing-machine were invented 
and turned to practical use. 

When first he began to go to school he walked with 
his sisters from their home in Greenwich Village to 
the old Dutch Reformed school, then situated in Nas- 
sau Street, opposite to the old Middle Dutch Church, 
the site of the present Mutual Life Insurance Compa- 
ny's building. Their long walk led them across Mi- 
netta Brook and down by Burr's Pond (on his Rich- 
mond Hill estate), into which the brook flowed, through 
the thick woods that extended from Macdougal and 



lyS A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

Downing streets, and thence out into the cornfields 
and meadows that stretched down to Canal Street. It 
was only when they had crossed the bridge there that 
they had reached the suburbs of the city. In all their 
long walk they had to make but one turn, out of Broad- 
way into Liberty Street. It was a journey that would 
have appalled the school-child of to-day. But there 
were no conveniences of suburban travel at that time. 
A stage made a daily trip from Greenwich Village to 
John Street and back every week-day, to accommodate 
business men who lived out of town, but the fare was 
two shillings each way, and that was entirely too great 
a price to pay for education. 

When a boy of eight, my patriarchal friend saw Ful- 
ton's steamboat, the Clermont, pass Greenwich Village 
in making her first trip up the Hudson. Everybody 
had heard of this apparently foolhardy undertaking, 
and all were on the watch for a glimpse of " Fulton's 
folly." The school -children were wild with excite- 
ment, and when news came that the boat was in sight, 
they ran down to a high bluff that stood at the foot 
of Morton Street and cheered it as it passed. " What 
did it look like?" I asked. The old man chuckled. " I 
told people afterwards," he said, " that it was as big 
as a barn and a block long, and horrible to behold ; 
and they believed it, too. But in reality it looked like 
a big scow, with unprotected paddles in the centre, 
and a walking-beam and other machinery half exposed 
to view. It was a very primitive affair, and did not 
move very fast ; but to us it was a wonder then, as it 
went without sails." Then he went on to tell me that 
he had often seen Robert Fulton afterwards in the 
shop in which he had learned his trade, and where the 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 1 79 

great inventor was overseeing the manufacture of ma- 
chinery for the steam-frigate which he had planned for 
the defence of New York. The frigate was a species 
of floating battery, which proved to be impracticable, 
yet it was the seed idea of monitors and turreted ships, 
and did not ripen because its growth was premature. 
Fulton heard nothing while in the shop, and saw noth- 
ing. With eye and mind intent on the machinery or 
plans before him, he would not break away unless some 
one put a hand on his shoulder and called him back by 
a touch. 

Two of the company on Fulton's first steamboat 
voyage down the Hudson have but lately passed to 
the other side of the sea of time. Dr. William Perry, 



THE CLERMONT 



who lived at Exeter, New Hampshire, and who sur- 
vived his ninety-eighth birthday, rode from Albany to 
Kingston on the return trip of the steamboat, and had 
a vivid remembrance of the incidents of that eventful 
voyage. He declared that the name of the boat was 
not the Clermont, as has been generally accepted, but 
Katharine of Claremont, so called in honor of Fulton's 
wife, who was a daughter of Chancellor Livingston, 
and her family, to whose liberality he owed the money 



l8o • A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

to carry out his idea of a vessel propelled by steam. 
The last surviving passenger on this famous voyage 
was Col. George L. Perkins, of Norwich, Conn., who, 
until his century-mark, continued in service as active 
treasurer of the Norwich and Worcester Railroad 
Company. 

There is an old-fashioned Methodist Episcopal 
church at the corner of Bedford and Morton streets, 
at whose side I remember that long ago a quiet little 
burying- ground stretched. These serene and silent 
settlements of the dead have always had a strange fas- 
cination for me. Especially is this true of the half- 
forgotten nooks in old city by-ways where the men 
and women of a former generation sleep — those about 
whose lives hang the romance of the days before I was 
born. I never pass the greensward that softly roofs 
them in from our eyes but I wish that I could ques- 
tion them concerning the days in which they lived. 
Some one had told me that a half-century ago, when 
a smaller church building occupied the site at Morton 
and Bedford streets, the burial-ground was more ex- 
tensive, and I remembered that at one time it was 
more conspicuous, so I went to my old friend, whose 
memory I knew to be wonderfully bright, and asked 
him how far back he could recall this old-time sanctu- 
ary of the disciples of John Wesley. His eyes twin- 
kled triumphantly as he replied : " Why, I remember 
when it was built. I attended with my mother the 
first Methodist meetings held here. We belonged to 
the Dutch Reformed Church at the corner of Bleecker 
and West Tenth streets — it was Herring and Amos 
streets then — but we got drawn into the carpenter- 
shop that was the cradle of Methodism here, and, 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK l8l 

praise the Lord, I have been in the way ever since." 
It was the story of a city church that he told me then, 
and this was also a story of the city's growth, though 
with this difference, that, unlike many another congre- 
gation, the people of old Bedford Street Church still 
hold the fort, and are as strong as they were half a 
century ago. I saw the church filled in the storm of 
a late Sunday night, and the altar railing occupied by 
nearly a score of penitents. And up from all corners 
of the church rang the triumphant notes of the old 
hymns with which Charles Wesley sang into the King- 
dom of his Master and theirs a multitude whom no 
man can number. 

The first meetings of the Methodists of Greenwich 
Village were held at the house of Samuel Walgrove, 
on the north side of Morton Street, not far from 
Bleecker. Thence they were transferred to his car- 
penter-shop, whose first floor was carefully swept on 
Saturday afternoons, and arranged with benches of 
rough lumber, so as to accommodate from fifty to 
sixty persons. This was in 1808. It did not take 
long for this zealous little congregation to outgrow its 
limits and demand more room. Five lots were pur- 
chased at the corner of Bedford and Morton streets 
for $250 each, and there a church was built in 1810. 
It was a plain edifice, without steeple, blinds, or orna- 
ment ; its sides were shingled, and it was painted the 
color of cream. Two separate entrances led into the 
two aisles — one for males and the other for females. 
The sexes were kept rigidly apart for years. " Yes," 
said my aged informant, " we had a hard time keeping 
the boys and girls apart after the galleries were built, 
but we did it for a while. They could only sit and 



l82 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

wink and blush at each other." And then he laughed 
softly to himself, as if memory had brought back sum- 
mer days when the corn could be seen waving outside 
of the windows of the old shingled church, and the 
bluebirds and robins were twittering in the willows, 
and the eye would wander, in spite of the conscience, 
to the opposite row of benches, where, demure and 
sweet, with dimples struggling up to the corners of 
the mouth and flushes of pink lighting up the severely 
simple Sunday bonnet, sat the dearest girl in all the 
world. An old story? Yes, it was an old story even 
then. But ask your grandson if it is not new. 

The pulpit was a lofty, pepper-box structure, that 
subsequently went with the high -backed pews and 
other furniture to decorate the interior of a church 
for colored people on West Fifteenth Street, when, in 
1830, the old building was enlarged by an addition of 
six feet on the front and fourteen feet on one of the 
sides, which made a singular exterior and decidedly 
queer interior. Outside, Nature made some amends, 
through a row of poplars on the Morton Street side 
and two comely willows on Bedford Street. But in- 
side all was bare and hard except around the altar 
space, which was carpeted. This, together with the 
placing of blinds at the pulpit windows, was an inno- 
vation that was stoutly resisted. It was inveighed 
against by the elders of the congregation as yielding 
to the pomps and vanities of the world. But the 
church prospered. John Newland Mafifit, the famous 
revivalist, held wonderful gatherings in the old meet- 
ing-house (no one called it a church then), and in 1840 
its membership of nine hundred had outgrown its for- 
mer accommodations, and the present comfortable and 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 1 83 

commodious edifice was built, which still holds its own 
in the old Ninth Ward. Under the old church had 
been a cellar in which cider was stored ; under the 
new the space was turned to better account in class- 
rooms and an ample lecture-room, where the old rail- 
ing, at which so many thousands of converts had knelt 
in the days of Maffit and Rice, stands as a monument 
to past simplicity and power ; for there was power 
there from the first, and " the shout of a king was 
among them." An old gentleman of eigh'ty-one, who 
used sometimes to walk up to this church from his 
home in Vesey Street through the swamps and mead- 
ows above Canal Street, that then were filled with snipe 
and woodcock from the Jersey shore, and who liked to 
stop and drink at a beautiful spring under some chest- 
nut-trees in the fields south of Morton Street, said tq^ 
me : " They used to call this the shouting church, and 
I often saw the men sitting in the pews in their shirt- 
sleeves and shouting as if they were wild." 

It was in 1841 that the steamship President sailed 
from New York, never to return. Among her passen- 
gers was the Rev. Mr. Cookman, father of the late Rev. 
John E. Cookman, D.D., pastor of the Bedford Street 
Church, and of the Rev. Alfred Cookman, famed in 
Methodist annals as a leader in the spiritual Israel. 
Pastor and people in the old Greenwich Village con- 
gregation are suited to each other, and work in won- 
derful unison. The church that has seen eighty win- 
ters pass over its head, and that has kept on growing 
all that time, is likely to breast successfully the storms 
of centuries to come. So may it be. 



1 84 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



CHAPTER XVI 

ON THE EAST SIDE — THE OLD SHTPPING MERCHANTS — JACOB LEISLER — 
A PARADISE OF CHURCHES — THE DOMINIE'S GARDEN — MORAL AND 
RELIGIOUS SANITY OF OLD NEW YORK 

" What is the matter with the east side?" writes a 
friend, whose family homestead was once on Pearl 
Street. 

To which I make answer by turning the steps of 
the tourist to a quarter of the city that was the earli- 
est business centre, and that held the homes of the 
wealthier colonists, at a time when the splendors of 
the old Walton House were quoted in the British Par- 
liament as an incentive to the tax-gatherer. Yet there 
are some recollections which sadden me as I take my 
way up the water-front of the East River. In my 
boyhood the wharves were filled with clipper ships 
and packets that bore the flag of the Union, and fur- 
ther up were great ship-yards where we school-boys 
went to see the great vessels launched. I am enough 
of a free-trader to be at war with the dog-in-the-manger 
policy of our Government which forbids our merchants 
on the one hand to go into the open market and pur- 
chase ships built in other lands, and on the other 
hand retains the heavy war taxes on material which 
prevents them from entering into competition with 
foreign shipwrights. My uncles were shipping mer- 
chants in South Street, near Wall (above the door I 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 187 

can still read the faded lettering of the sign), who were 
compelled to sell their ships when Confederate cruis- 
ers began their depredations. The ghost of our lost 
commercial marine haunts my steps as I pass by. 

The east side from the earliest time was the cradle 
of mercantile life. The old Dutch founders of the 
city settled it by locating their canal on Broad Street 
and anchoring their vessels in the East River, on 
whose banks their primitive wharves and storehouses 
were built. There is not a street between the Battery 
and the City Hall Park which is not redolent with 
the romance of the old merchants of the metropolis. 
They were a social power in colonial days, a political 
power in the years that saw the struggle for independ- 
ence, a progressive power in the building up of the 
young republic. To write their story would be to 
give the history of the rise and prosperity of the city. 
Yet their social, business, and domestic life in the ear- 
lier part of this century is a theme to tempt sorely 
the saunterer's pen. 

I remember when a boy frequently visiting the 
store of Valentine & Bartholomew, on Front Street, 
in which one of my uncles was the youngest clerk. 
It was a dingy place. The front was filled with coffee 
and sugar in bags and barrels, and in the rear was a 
bare, bleak office, containing high desks with spindle 
legs, wooden stools and chairs, and neither carpet nor 
anything else approaching luxury. In winter a small 
fire of Liverpool coal made a dismal attempt to heat 
the atmosphere. It was a fair type of the offices of 
the period. As for the clerks, they were expected to 
work early and late. The junior clerk had to be on 
hand by seven o'clock to admit the porter, and help 




NO. 2 BROADWAY, 1798 



him sweep and set things to rights. The modern 
clerk would think himself insulted if set to such tasks. 
Yet out of just such work our great merchants were 
moulded. In the case above quoted the junior clerk 
was president of a bank in Wall Street at thirty years 
of age. 

It would not do, in those days, to judge of the 
prosperity of a firm by its surroundings. A story 
told me by Jehiel Post, many years ago, illustrates 
this aptly. His father and uncle were in business in 
William Street, and their office and store (in which 
they kept only samples) were as bare and comfortless 
as an empty barn. It happened that a country mer- 
chant had received a note of theirs in course of trade, 
and as he was in the city he thought it would do 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 189 

no harm to look them up and find how they stood. 
On entering the store he was astonished to find their 
stock apparently very low, and everything bearing the 
appearance of a lack of trade. Beginning to grow 
alarmed, he entered the back ofSce, and was still more 
disheartened by its appearance of poverty. At last 
he mustered courage to remark that he held a note of 
the firm. "Very well," answered the senior Jehiel, 
" it will be paid when due." But this did not satisfy 
the countryman, and he ventured to inquire if the 
firm would not discount the note. " We don't do 
business that way," was the cold reply. "But, gen- 
tlemen," stammered the man, " I'll take off lo per 
cent, for cash — yes," with a burst of terror, " I'll take 
off twenty." "Brother Jehiel, do you hear that?" 
whispered the other partner ; " let's take him up." 
The bargain was made and the money paid down. 
" Now," said one of the brothers, " if you please, tell 
us the meaning of this strange transaction." The 
countryman made his confession, and the brothers 
roared. They were vastly more tickled by the joke 
than by the profit. Calling one of their clerks, they 
sent him around with the visitor to the bank where 
the note was to be paid, and there the latter was in- 
formed by the cashier that he would cash the check 
of the firm any day for $50,000. 

To men who take a pride in New York as their 
own city there is a historic charm about this old mer- 
cantile camping -ground on the east side. There is 
scarcely a street which has not its patriotic legend. 
The old tavern of Sam Fraunce, in which Washing- 
ton took leave of his officers at the close of the war, is 
still standing at Broad and Pearl streets. At the De 



190 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



Peyster House, on Pearl Street, opposite Cedar, the 
general had his headquarters. On Wall Street he 
was inaugurated President. Through these streets 
the Liberty Boys paraded. Here they seized a load 
of muskets from their red - coated guardians ; there 
they threw into the street the types of the loyalist 
printer, Rivington. Francis Lewis, a merchant doing 
business on Dock Street, and Philip Livingston, whose 
store was at the corner of Water Street and Maiden 
Lane, were signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. 

It is a good many years since I noticed on the wall 
of the Senate Chamber in the old Capitol at Albany a 







^^^^^sr> 



fraunce's tavern, broad and pearl streets 



portrait of Jacob Leisler. A wealthy shipping mer- 
chant of New York, he was the city's first martyr to 
constitutional liberty. Called by the Committee of 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



191 



Safety and the people to fill the interregnum occa- 
sioned by the accession of William and Mary, his 
short term of office, from 1689 to 1691, was the heroic 
age of the young colony. At his summons, in May, 
1690, the first Continental Congress assembled in the 
old Stadt Huys, on Coenties Slip, where the colonies 




of New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Plymouth, 
and Maryland were represented. New Jersey sent 
her sympathies, and the Philadelphia Quakers wrote 
that it was " ag't their princ'ls " to fight. But this 
sturdy little Congress was full of martial zeal, and 
voted to raise a grand army of 850 men to invade 
Canada and wipe out the French. The people stood 
by Leisler; the aristocrats, led by Col. Nicholas Bay- 
ard, opposed him. Finally a new Governor came 
from England, Colonel Sloughter, and Leisler was de- 



192 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

posed, tried, and condemned to hang for treason. It 
was a travesty of justice, and Sloughter could be in- 
duced to sign the death-warrant only after a wine 
supper at the fort. The next morning, in a drenching 
rain, Leisler was led forth to execution. The place 
selected was on his own grounds, on Park Row, east 
of the Post-office, in full view of his home. The peo- 
ple shouted and groaned, but the law prevailed, and 
they had to content themselves with tenderly convey- 
ing the corpse of the martyr to a quiet grave in his 
own garden, near at hand. Two months later Colonel 
Sloughter died suddenly, and was buried in the Stuy- 
vesant vault, near the chapel which is now St. Mark's 
Church ; four years afterwards the taint of treason 
was by royal proclamation removed from the name 
and fame of Jacob Leisler. 

The lower east side early became the paradise of 
churches. The Dutch Reformed had the South 
Church, on Exchange Place ; Middle Church, on Nas- 
sau Street, where the Mutual Life Building now 
stands; and North Church, at Fulton and William 
streets, where the noon-day prayer-meeting still com- 
memorates its site. These were large, substantial 
structures, each with its graveyard at the side, dotted 
with ancient tombstones. The Presbyterians built 
their first church on Wall Street, where it stood for 
more than a century. Jonathan Edwards was once 
its pastor. Their second congregation erected the old 
" Brick Church " upon the triangular lot bounded by 
Park Row, Beekman, and Nassau streets, and known 
as " The Vineyard." I remember the edifice well. 
It was an architectural horror. But no man was more 
revered than its pastor, Dr. Gardner Spring, though 




■™^'"^^"5»^»ii^BsS™p^,^n»i^ 



NORTH DUTCH CHURCH, FULTOiN STREET 



he was not a particularly attractive preacher. Anoth- 
er Presbyterian church stood on Cedar Street, and a 
fourth on Rutgers Street. Theologically the denomi- 
nation was a power. Drs. Rogers, McKnight, Mille- 
dollar, Romeyn, and Samuel Miller were men of won- 
derful strength in the pulpit, as were also Dr. Mason, 



194 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



of the Scotch Presbyterian Church in Cedar Street, 
and Dr. McLeod, of the Covenanters' Church, in Cham- 
bers Street. Drs. Miller and Mason were the intellect- 
ual leaders of the New York pulpit in their day, their 
only rival being Dr. (afterwards Bishop) Hobart. It 




PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, WALL STREET 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



195 



used to be said of Dr. Livingstone, of the Dutch 
Church, and Bishop Provoost, of the Episcopal, that 
" when they met on Sunday and exchanged saluta- 
tions, they took up 
the entire street, 
and reminded be- 
holders of two frig- 
ates under full 
sail, exchanging 
salutes with each 
other." 

In the Methodist 
chapel, on John 
Street, still occu- 
pied for worship, 
Whitefield used to 
"preach like a 
lion." The Meth- 
odists had other 

churches on Forsyth and Duane streets. Baptist 
" meeting-houses " were erected on Gold, Oliver, and 
Rose streets before this century had opened, and 
were flourishing. The Lutherans built their first 
church at the corner of William and Frankfort streets, 
and the German Reformed people were housed on Nas- 
sau, near John Street. The pastors of these churches, 
Drs. Kunze and Grose, were among the group that 
stood back of President Washington when he took the 
oath of ofifice. The Moravians had a church on Ful- 
ton Street, near William. The Quakers had a meeting- 
house and burying-ground on Little Queen Street, be- 
tween Maiden Lane and Liberty Street, and the Jews 
built their first synagogue on Mill Street — a thorough- 




METHODIST CHURCH, JOHN STREET 



190 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

fare now blotted out by the march of improvement. 
Their old burial- plot remains, however. When they 
purchased it their idea was to seek a sepulchre far 
away from the living and their haunts, so in 1729 they 
purchased ground east of what is now Chatham 
Square, between James and Oliver streets. Part of 
the greensward and some of the headstones carved 
with Hebrew characters still remain, walled in on all 
sides but one by the high walls of tenement-houses. 

There were two Episcopal churches east of Broad- 
way when the century was in its teens. One was 
Christ Church, on Ann Street, afterwards transferred 
to Anthony, now Worth Street ; the other was St. 
George's Church, on Beekman Street. The latter was 
a stately stone edifice, in which I have often heard 
Dr. Milnor, the rector, preach. Once a Congressman 
from Pennsylvania, the doctor was as successful in the 
ministry as he had been in politics. In Zion Church, 
on Mott Street (now the Ro- 
man Catholic Church of the 
Transfiguration), I have also 
attended services when Dr. Rich- 
ard Cox was rector. He had 
been a Wall Street broker, and, 
LUTHERAN CHURCH ^'^^ general Butler, was " cross- 

William and Frankfort Streets eyed " aS Well aS cloqUCnt. ZioU 

Church had been a Lutheran 
conventicle until 1804, when it transferred its alle- 
giance to the Episcopal ordo. About the same time, 
also, the old French Huguenot congregation on Pine 
Street conformed to the apostolic succession. With 
a minister and a church on Marketfield Street as early 
as 1687, they started a burying-ground ten years later, 




1 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK I99 

" far out of town," bounded by Pine, Cedar, and Nas- 
sau streets. Here in 1704 they built a quaint stone 
church, fronting on Pine Street, which stood until 
about sixty years ago. Its last Huguenot preacher 
was a queer little man, of unimpeachable learning and 
dulness, who modelled his sermons exactly after the 
pattern laid down in Claude s Essay on Preaching. 
Usually he preached in French, but when he resorted 
to English the effect was irresistible. He always an- 
nounced in turn each division of his sermon, saying 
gravely : " Now we have de oration," or, " Now we 
have de peroration." But his masterpiece of effect- 
iveness was exhibited when, with a befittingly solemn 
face, he gave out the thrilling announcement, "And 
now, my friends, we come to de pa-tet-ic." 

It is creditable to the religious spirit of the Knicker- 
bocker founders of New York that, without making 
any proclamation of their piety, they tolerated all 
sects, and established here, what the Puritans did not 
leave "unstained" in Plymouth colony, "freedom to 
worship God." Roger Williams and Mrs. Anne Hutch- 
inson found a refuge here from persecution. Gov- 
ernor Keift ransomed the Jesuit Fathers Jogues and 
Bressani from the Indians, and gave them free trans- 
port to Europe. Jews were admitted to citizenship 
on their petition in 1657. When the witchcraft delu- 
sion was at its height in New England, the New York 
clergy met and resolved that " a good name obtained 
by a good life should not be lost by mere spectral ac- 
cusation." At a time when the religious people ol 
Wethersfield, Conn., were bent upon praising God by 
hanging a poor widow, the latter found hospitable 
refuge in Westchester, and when some of the timid 



200 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

politicians of that day demanded her banishment, the 
Court of Assizes held in this city ordered that she 
" remaine in the Town of Westchester, or elsewhere 
in the Government during her pleasure." Thus, with 
even balance, did the men who built this city dis- 
charge their duty to God and man. And when 
churches had multiplied on the east side, and denomi- 
nations had grown rich and powerful, there was still 
no clashing of theological strife. An upright, liberal 
people, invincible in honesty and enterprise, the old 
New Yorkers were unconsciously a model for their 
times. 

But did I not begin to say something about the old 
merchants of the city, and then branch off into the 
churches? What with finding a brand-new park down 
by the water-side, in the busiest and oldest haunts of 
commerce, and being greeted at every turn by the 
ghosts of departed churches and rifled burying-grounds, 
to say nothing of the spectre of our slaughtered ship- 
ping, I have let the old men of business renown slip 
by. Let us call the roll of the great merchants of 
forty years ago, and how many will answer? It is a 
roster of the dead. As to their ways of dealing, their 
social pleasures, their habits, and their homes, we have 
changed all that, as Moliere's quack doctor remarks — 
but is it for the better? 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



CHAPTER XVII 

WHEN HARLEM WAS A VILLAGE — FISHING FOR FLOUNDERS — THE 
CANAL MANIA — AN ANCIENT TOLL-BRIDGE — TWENTY YEARS AFTER 
— MOTT's CANAL AND HIS HAVEN 

A FRIEND, who is twenty years my senior, and whose 
hfe has been crowned with high civic honors, delights 
to tell of a stolen day spent on the forbidden banks of 
Stuyvesant's Creek, near the foot of Fourth Street 
and the East River, and of the parental vengeance 
that overtook him the next day, when his mother dis- 
covered under his pillow a huge eel, which, with a fish- 
erman's pride, he could not bear to part with, and yet, 
as a trespasser in forbidden paths, he had not dared 
to exhibit. He recalls with a sigh the pleasure which 
that nibble afforded him on a summer day sixty years 
ago, and in the same way I look back with envy on a 
long day in June that has impressed on my memory a 
vivid picture of the quiet village of Harlem as I first 
saw it — a placid hamlet embowered in trees, set off 
on either side by the thick woods that crowned the 
heights beyond McGowan's Pass and the elevation on 
the Westchester side known as Buena Ridge, and by 
the silver line of Harlem River and the East River 
waters, dotted with islands, that were broadening into 
the Sound. The old Dutch settlement, almost coeval 
with the metropolis, was a synonyme of repose. Phy- 
sicians commended it as a place inaccessible to care. 



204 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

There, it was rumored, natives and aliens alike slept 
twenty hours out of the twenty-four ; but this may 
have been slander. 

But let me begin at the beginning. A chum of 
mine, whose final name was Smith (this was his name, 
in fact, and I stand ready to prove that the Smith 
family has ancient and honorable lineage, and that 
one of the high and mighty Schepens of New Am- 
sterdam bore the name of Smith in the Holland ver- 
nacular), entered into a conspiracy with me to play 
hookey. We longed for the country ; we wanted to 
catch some flounders; we had saved up sundry shil- , 
lings which were burning holes in our pockets, and we 
were perfectly agreed that we could enjoy ourselves 
in no way so well as in stealing a day from school. 
Our plans were laid in secrecy, and it nearly killed us, 
I remember, to keep the conspiracy to ourselves, so 
proud did we feel of our boyish boldness. The day 
we had fixed upon came slowly, but it dawned glori- 
ously, and at the hour when Trinity School was open- 
ing with prayer, two of its promising pupils were rac- 
ing towards the Bowery to catch the stage which left 
the City Hall at nine o'clock for Harlem. What a 
ride that was! Up beyond the junction of the Bow- 
ery with Fourth Avenue all traces of business were 
left behind. The houses began to stand apart, gar- 
dens sprang up and blossomed between, with odor of 
roses and honeysuckles, clusters of trees became fre- 
quent as we emerged into the old Boston Road, and 
when we had passed Twenty-third Street we were fair- 
ly in the country. At the left rose the gray walls of 
the great reservoir at Forty-second Street, conspicu- 
ous among scattered villas; at the right the East River 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 205 

kept flashing into view between patches of forest trees 
and beyond rolHng meadows. 

Yorkville was a somewhat scattered hamlet, possess- 
ing several churches, a number of small stores, and a 
large and varied assortment of residences. It was 
never very attractive to the eye. But the view tow- 
ards the East River was superb. The handsome res- 
idences on the Long Island shore were conspicuous 
then, as were also many fine old-fashioned houses on 
this side, which had been in possession of old New 
York families for generations. As a boy I had a spe- 
cial interest in the fortifications of 1812, which had 
once stretched transversely across the island from the 
vicinity of Hell Gate, and of which the remains were 
then visible at many points. Between Yorkville and 
Harlem Village, on the line of the Boston Road, there 
were very few houses, and none of special importance 
except an ancient hostlery, at which we did not stop. 
It seems incredible that time should have made such 
changes in little more than a generation, and built up 
a city in solid strength through five miles of what was 
then only rural scenery; but — ccce sigiiuin! the city 
is there. The fields have been swallowed up. Villas 
have disappeared as did Aladdin's palace. 

When we got to the canal at One Hundred and 
Tenth Street, we two truants, simultaneously animat- 
ed by a desire to explore this marvel, pulled the strap 
of the stage, paid the driver a shilling each, and de- 
scended, glad of the chance to stretch our weary 
limbs again. The canal was filled up some years ago, 
and its site is covered by houses, which must neces- 
sarily be rather damp in the cellar. At that time it 
extended from the East River nearly to the Fifth 



2o6 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

Avenue line. In part it followed the line of Harlem 
Creek, a tributary to the river of that name at its 
mouth, and was solidly built of stone, with handsome- 
ly constructed locks. But it was a failure. Every 
once in a while the canal mania seems to have seized 
upon New York. It came naturally to the Dutch 
founders of New Amsterdam. They would have 
been unhappy without a canal. At one time they 
contemplated building a whole net-work of water high- 
ways in the sweetly swampy region of Spuyten Duy- 
vil Creek and Mosholu Brook, a locality which always 
reminded them tenderly of the fatherland. But they 
contented themselves with the construction of the 
canal to which Broad Street owes its width, and 
which enabled the market-men from the Long Island 
shores to run their craft up as far as Wall Street. 
There, on the bridges that crossed that municipal 
ditch, the Dutch burgher smoked his pipe in the early 
twilight, leaning on the railing and thinking half re- 
gretfully of his old home. There, a little later, Ka- 
trina looked down into the placid water that reflected 
nothing prettier than her face, which glowed with ten- 
derness at her ardent swain's repetition of the old, old 
story, which every strong man's heart thinks to be his 
own special discovery. 

At a later day capital had an idea of traversing the 
young city with a canal which should extend from 
Beekman Swamp to the Collect Pond, and thence, by 
the western outlet of that body of water, through Ca- 
nal Street to the North River. It proved to be too 
large a scheme to handle, however, and, after being 
discussed for years, was dropped. But the movement 
which led to the construction of the Harlem Canal was 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



207 



really formidable. 
A company was 
formed in 1827, en- 
titled the Harlem 
Canal Company, 
which placed on the 
market 1 1 ,000 shares 
of stock at $50 each, 
to build a grand wa- 
ter highway "across 
the island, through 
Manhattanville, and 
along the valley m 




MILL ROCK FORT 



2o8 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

the vicinity of the North and East rivers." The ca- 
nal was to be sixty feet in width, walled with stone on 
each side, with a street fifty feet v/ide on each side, 
and three miles in length. I have been curious enough 
to look up the dazzling prospectus of this company, 
from which I quote ; and in reading it I am afraid it 
was slightly suggestive of speculation. Professor Ren- 
wick, of Columbia College (with what respect the gen- 
eration of Oldboys remember him !), was quoted as 
computing that the canal would furnish one hundred 
and seventy horse-power to those who desired to avail 
themselves of it. The company's representatives in 
1827 went into a prophecy of population, which was 
not fulfilled as they expected. The population of the 
city having been 33,131 in 1790, and 166,085 in 1825, 
and being estimated at 200,000 in 1827, they predicted 
that it would be doubled every fifteen years, and 
would reach 800,000 in 1857, at which time a "dense 
population " would cover Harlem plains. A curious 
feature of the programme was the offer of forty build- 
ings and lots to be drawn in a lottery by the subscrib- 
ers. Dazzling as was the prospectus, the project fail- 
ed. Now, at a later day, with the population on the 
ground, the Federal Government comes to the front 
to carry out in the proposed ship-canal through Har- 
lem River and Spuyten Duyvil Creek the old idea 
which started at the Collect Pond, and afterwards 
laid foundations in Harlem Creek. When the great 
ship -canal is finally ready for dedication, the spirits 
of the Dutch founders of New York, who, when 
they were safely landed on Manhattan, first gave 
thanks to God, and then went to hunt for a place to 
dig a canal, may confidently be invoked to be present. 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 209 

But it is time the two runaways left the canal, 
where they threw in their lines, but got no bite, and 
turned their faces towards Harlem. Forty years ago 
the village was compact, clustered down close to the 
river, well shaded with trees, most charmingly rural, 
and apparently impervious to change. Cows were 
grazing in St. Andrew's church-yard, and there was 
more of the same style of four-footed worshippers in 
the yard around the old Dutch Church. Yet it all 
looked natural ; and the pigs in the street were taken 
as a matter of course, for even New York had not 
then entirely triumphed in her crusade against peri- 
patetic porkers. Altogether, it is a pleasant remem- 
brance which I have of ancient Harlem, even down 
to the remarkable old hotel at the river's edge, just 
west of the bridge, where we went to hire a boat for 
fishing, and rented one for half a day for a shilling. 
We didn't cross the bridge; it had no charms for us. 
I don't believe it had charms for any one. It was a 
toll-bridge ; but I never felt entirely safe in trusting 
my life to it. I never remember it to have been any- 
thing but a ruin, moss-grown and shaky, yet it is not 
twenty years since it was removed. At the time of 
which I write it was in keeping with the landscape. 
Beyond the river few houses were visible. The land 
belonged to the Morris family. The old homestead 
of Gouverneur Morris, builder of the Constitution, 
friend of Washington, diplomatist and Senator, stood 
near the mouth of Harlem River, with its chimneys 
just visible above the trees. Not far away was the 
rural residence of Lewis Morris, signer of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and just beyond rose the spire 
of the church the family had erected, and beneath 



2IO A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

which their dead repose — St. Ann's Church, Morris- 
ania. And up from the bridge stretched the old Bos- 
ton Road, rich in historic associations. 

It was in the autumn of 1865 that I next fished 
for flounders at the mouth of the Harlem River, and 
through all the intervening time I do not think that I 
had set foot in the old Dutch village. I found that 
Harlem had grown in size with the advent of the 
horse-cars, and had put on some fresh architectural 
frills, but the old toll-bridge was there, more rickety 
than ever, and the old inn by the river- side, more 
shabby and shambling than in former years. The 
flounders were there, but the new generation of boat- 
men charged two shillings an hour for their skiffs, and 
bait was an extra item. Across the river a scientific 
descendant of Tubal Cain had purchased a large plot 
of ground from the Morris heirs and called it after his 
own name. The old possessors of the soil rebelled 
at the name, but the new settler, whose foundery had 
put life into a sleeping locality, set up a painted sign, 
" Mott Haven," and clinched the business by obtain- 
ing from Uncle Sam the appointment of a postmas- 
ter.* Like the pioneer patriarchs from Holland, after 

* A Westchester correspondent writes that he has heai-d that when 
the elder Jordan L. Mott had received from the hands of Gouverneur 
Morris, "The Patroon," the title-deeds of his purchase on Harlem 
River, he inquired whether he might be permitted to call his newly 
acquired territory Mott Haven. "Yes," was the answer, "and for 
all that 1 care you may change the name of the Harlem River to the 
Jordan, and dip into it as often as you want to." Thus contempora- 
neous history differs, and the reader is left at liberty to make his choice 
between the new version and the old. The Patroon in question was 
rough and ready, not unlike old Zachary Taylor, whom he resembled 
in personal appearance, though he was taller than the general. He 



A TOUR AROUND NF.W YORK 211 

Mr. Mott had fairly got his tent pitched in the plains 
of Westchester, he looked around for a good place to 
build a canal, and forthwith dug one in the rear of his 
foundery, extending north from Harlem River to a 
distance of about a quarter of a mile. Then he waited 
for developments, which do not yet seem to have 
developed themselves, but may do so in the future. 
Meanwhile the village of Morrisania had sprung up 
into vigorous life, and following in its wake came 
other smaller settlements, such as Melrose, Wilton, 
and North New York, now become part of the old 
city by annexation, with scarce a trace left of their 
rural existence. From the bridge out to Fordham, 
at that time, meandered at uncertain intervals the 
cars of the famous "huckleberry road," which gener- 
ously accommodated all except those who were in a 
hurry, and whose stockholders then walked by faith in 
the future, and not by sight of the present. There 
was a foundery at Port Morris, amid the samphire 
beds that cluster around that magnificent roadstead. 
At Wilton were the homes of a score of actors whom 
Eddy, the dramatic successor of Edwin Forrest, had 
gathered about himself, and whose festival day was 
Sunday. Old St. Ann's Church still harbored the 
aristocracy of the peninsula, but streets had been laid 
out in its vicinity, and there was talk of rearing blocks 
of brick and mortar thereabouts and introducing new 
social elements. On Buena Ridge some ambitious 
villas had already made their appearance, and thriv- 
ing mechanics had reared some score of comfortable 

always led his workmen in the field, scythe or sickle in hand, and few 
could keep up with him in harvesting. Some of his aristocratic neigh- 
bors criticised him, but he cared nothing about it. 



212 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

houses in Mott Haven. Already the famous old hos- 
tlery of Horace Ward, near the railroad bridge, where 
for a dozen years the belles and beaus of Morrisania 
and parts adjacent had gathered for the winter dance, 
was beginning to look shabby, and more ambitious 
rivals in the hotel line were talked of for the upper 
settlements. 

It was in this transition state soon after the close 
of the war. I had last looked upon the place in its 
rustic freshness when I was a boy ; I came back to it 
a bronzed veteran of camp and field, and found it 
changed, like myself. Yet it had its charm for me 
still. The name of the old Revolutionary family still 
lent a distinct historic flavor to the land. Off Port 
Morris the British frigate Hussar had gone down, 
with great treasures of gold on board, and carrying, it 
was said, some shackled and helpless American pris- 
oners with her. By day a crew of divers were at work 
over the place where the treasure was supposed to be 
entombed in the sands, and at night (so it was stated 
at quiet firesides and in awe -struck whispers) the 
ghosts of the hapless followers of the Continental Con- 
gress were seen to wander about the shore and clink 
their chains to warn away the treasure -seekers. Be- 
sides, was it not even told that, on the wooded point 
just above, wicked Captain Kidd had buried a portion 
of his treasures, and placed a perpetual guard above 
it by shooting one of his sailors and burying him in 
the same trench with the chest of gold, silver, precious 
stones, and the spoils of foreign cathedrals? 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



CHArTER XVIII 

THE FIRST BRASS BAND — "THE LIGHT GUARD QUICKSTEP" — GEN- 
ERAL TRAINING -DAY — A FALSTAFFIAN ARMY — MILITIAMEN IN 
THEIR GLORY — OUR CRACK CORPS 

Before me lies a worn and faded piece of music, 
"The Light Guard Quickstep," composed and dedi- 
cated to Captain Vincent by T. J. Dodworth. It was 
played in front of the Astor House on days of anni- 
versary parade, out of compliment to Mr. Stetson, the 
proprietor, who was a lieutenant in this crack corps, 
and who afterwards did good service as a soldier of 
the Union. To the Light Guards and to the Dod- 
worths belong the credit of organizing our first mili- 
tary bands, and they did it handsomely. When Jul- 
lien, the conductor, returned to England from his trip 
through this country, he told the London musicians 
that it would not pay them to come here, as there 
was a musician in New York with a whole houseful 
of sons who had a band equal to anything the Old 
World could produce. 

The organized bands of music in this city are the 
growth of the last half century. Before that time the 
drum and fife did duty for the militia when on pa- 
rade. I suppose that it would be a slur upon the av- 
erage intellect of the Legislature to give credence to 
the story told of an honest member from the lake re- 
gion, who had fought as a soldier at Chippewa, and 




SHAKESPEARE TAVERN 



who made his maiden speech upon a bill which pro- 
posed to organize the militia of the State. " Mr. 
Speaker," said ex-Leftenant Hayseed, with the con- 
scious pride of a veteran whose feet are lighted by 
the lamp of experience, " I am opposed to organs. 
Our fathers fit with fife and drum at Saratoga, and so 
did we at Chippewa, and we made the redcoats skip 
every time. And besides, Mr. Speaker, them organs 
would be mighty onhandy things to have around in 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 2 1 5" 

time of battle." Whether owing to this patriotic and 
enHghtened stand or not, the martial music of Bunker 
Hill and of White Plains, of Lundy's Lane and Platts- 
burg, continued to inspire the militia of this city for 
many a long year after peace had been declared be- 
tween Great Britain and the United States. Some 
boys, who are still more venerable than myself, have 
told me that the first fragmentary attempts at mili- 
tary bands in this city were made by negro musicians; 
and this is entirely credible, because the African has 
in his nature the rhythm and soul of melody, and 
turns to music as a thrush warbles in the hedge. 
Be that as it may, the original Tom Dodworth (who 
at this time kept a small music and fruit store on 
Broadway), was the father of all our great military 
bands. His own organization, which was first known 
as the National Brass Band, but afterwards was very 
naturally popularized into Dodworth's Band, made 
their first parade in uniform of buff and blue at 
the head of the regiment known as the Governor's 
Guard, then commanded by Colonel Pears, a worthy 
warrior who had a confectionery store on Broadway 
opposite the park. Soon other competitors came into 
the field. Wallace, whose orchestra made music at 
Peale's Museum, on Broadway, between Murray and 
Warren streets, and who had almost as many sons as 
Dodworth, organized the New York Brass Band, and 
he was followed by Lothian and others. The war 
with Mexico lent a fresh impetus to martial music. 
Then came the war for the Union, wath its demand 
for military bands that should keep the pulse of sol- 
dier and people at battle heat, and out of this has 
been finally evolved the magnificent martial music 



2l6 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

that now puts the soul of the soldier into the militia 
that march through our streets. 

I have spoken of the Light Guard as a crack corps. 
Its rival was the City Guard, under command of Cap- 
tain McArdle. The drill of these two companies was 
superb ; their social composition was most exclusive. 
In the little city of their day not only were the of^- 
cers men of mark, but every private in the rear ranks 
was necessarily somebody. The militia idea ran to 
what might be called small cliques. In point of fact, 
they were the clubs of the period. The regimental 
bond, in all cases loose, was for the most part nom- 
inal. The Cadets and the Hussars, the Light Guard 
and the City Guard, the Kosciuskos and the La- 
fayettes, the Tompkins Blues and the Washington 
Greys, were the distinguishing social as well as mili- 
tary marks of the men about town. Money was pro- 
fusely expended on equipments and entertainments, 
and uniforms were selected without the slightest ref- 
erence to their compatibility with republican insti- 
tutions. The City Guard adopted the magnificent 
dress of the Coldstream Guards, and the Light Guard 
donned the showy Austrian uniform ; and so it hap- 
pened that when Louis Kossuth landed in our city 
he started back with an involuntary shudder at find- 
ing himself surrounded by the hated uniform of the 
House of Hapsburg, the Light Guard having been 
appointed a guard of honor as escort of the Hunga- 
rian patriot. 

The present generation has much to boast of in its 
advance upon the traditions and inventions of the 
fathers, but it has forever missed some delights whose 
memories are still redolent of pleasure to us who are 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 21/ 

tottering down the western slope of the hill. To the 
boy of to-day the once magic words "general training- 
day" have no meaning. To the Oldboys they still 
convey through memory's kaleidoscope rare pictures 
of the past. The "June training " was a holiday wheth- 
er the school -house kept its doors open or not. At 
one time it covered the space of three days ; later 
on a single day was devoted to the public instruction 
in the manual of arms. And a blithesome day it was. 
It never rained during those twenty-four hours. Very 
early in the sweet summer morning the victims and 
votaries of Mars used to assemble on the gravelled 
sidewalk of St. John's Park and in other convenient 
places, and go through the manual in awkward array. 
Short and tall, old and young, shabby and well dress- 
ed, the motley crew were ranged in line, while the in- 
structor in tactics, sword at side and with rattan in 
hand, endeavored to switch them into order and swear 
into their dull heads some idea of military discipline. 
It was a spectacle for which all New York prepared 
itself for weeks in advance with a broad grin. A virtual 
holiday, it always culminated in a carnival. When 
the hour arrived for the display of this motley crew 
in parade, all New York poured forth into the streets 
through which its awkward army marched, and laughed 
until its sides ached. 

In later days our local militia were attired in a 
magnificence of style unequalled by Solomon in all 
his glory. But in this somewhat primitive era, when, 
in view of the late war with Great Britain, every citi- 
zen was to be deemed a possible soldier, uniforms 
were a rarity. Each future hero of the battle-field 
attired and armed himself as seemed good in his own 



2l8 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

eyes, and could Falstaff have reviewed one of those 
June trainings, he would have evolved new turnings 
to his description of his own scarecrow regiment. 
None of the militia of the general training-day epoch 
were uniformed except the Light Guard, the City 
Guard, and the Washington Greys, of the infantry 
line, a battery of flying artillery, and the Washington 
Horse Troop. These uniformed corps constituted 
the flank companies of the main body of military in 
citizens' clothes. Description is beggared as the 
mind tries to recall them. Some wore the old-time 
furred high hats, many wore caps, occasionally one 
was bareheaded, and at intervals the "beaver" of an 
enthusiastic trainer was decorated at the side with a 
large black feather and cockade. The taste in dress 
was equally bizarre. The swallow-tail coat of the 
period was the rule, but it was found in company 
with the frock-coat, roundabout, pea-jacket, blouse of 
every color, and the red shirt from the Bowery pre- 
cincts. The exhibit of trousers was as miscellaneous 
in shape and color. Some of the gallant crew had 
the lower garment tucked in the boot-leg, and occa- 
sionally one wore knee-breeches, then not wholly dis- 
carded, and a few were arrayed as Indians, or in the 
costume of Christmas fantasticals. At rare intervals 
a company appeared in regulation broadcloth crossed 
with white belts, high hats, and cockades, and, being 
armed uniformly, presented for the moment quite a 
martial appearance, which, however, served only to 
bring the rest of the Falstaffian army into ridicule. 
The armament of the gallant militia was so varied as 
to be sublime, and could not have failed to strike ter- 
ror into the soul of any foreign spectator. Some of 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 219 

the heroes of the parade carried an old " King's arm " 
that had done service in 1812, or in the Revolutionary 
and French wars, in the hands of their fathers and 
grandfathers ; others had a more modern flintlock or 
a fowling-piece. A few had bayonets, and a few more 
possessed belts and cartridge-boxes. Those who had 
no other weapon of offence armed themselves with 
cord-wood saplings, canes, umbrellas, and broomsticks, 
carried proudly at shoulder arms. Viewed as an 
army, this host of patriots was fearfully and wonder- 
fully made ; viewed as a pageant it was sublime. 
" Sare," said a polite French visitor, who had been 
under fire at Marengo and at Waterloo, and had been 
invited to assist in reviewing our gallant militia, " I 
have seen ze troops of ze grand Napoleon, and ze sol- 
diers of ze terrible Russe, and ze John Bull zat you 
make run, sare, but I nevare see such troops as zese, 
sare — nevare !" 

The fun of training-day was phenomenal, but it had 
to be paid for. After the glory of the review came 
the terrors of the court-martial. In a few weeks those 
who had failed to turn out for inspection, as by law 
directed, and those who had not equipped themselves 
in such martial array as the statute required, found 
themselves standing in the impressive presence of a 
circle of epauletted ofificers, whose sternness was equal- 
led only by the amount of gold -lace that bedizened 
them. Then woe befell the unlucky wight who had 
hoped to escape detection as an artful dodger of his 
duty, or the careless trainer, whose bayonet, cartridge- 
box, or musket had not materialized itself to the in- 
spector's eye. All delinquents were incontinently 
fined in sums varying from 25 cents to $5, and those 



220 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

who had not the money to pay were promptly filed off 
under guard and consigned to the iron grasp of Mar- 
shal Davids. The unhappy defender of his country's 
honor had no alternative but to furnish the hard cash, 
or to rest his martial bones in Eldridge Street Jail 
until such time as his fine had been liquidated, at the 
rate of one dollar for each day of imprisonment. 'Twas 
ever thus, that those who would dance must pay the 
piper. 

The military system of the city and State was a far- 
reaching one in the days when I first took delight in 
stealing out to follow a parade through the streets. It 
will surprise the miltiaman of to-day to learn that Colo- 
nel Tappan commanded the Two Hundred and Thir- 
ty-sixth Regiment of Infantry, and that the late Colonel 
Devoe was commandant of the Two Hundred and 
Sixty-ninth Regiment. One reads the history of gen- 
eral training -day in the record of Maj.-gen. James I. 
Jones, who commanded the Thirteenth Division of the 
State militia, composed of the Fifty-ninth and Sixty- 
third Brigades of Infantry. In the latter command 
were the Seventy-fifth Regiment, under command of 
Col. Frederick S. Boyd; Two Hundred and Forty- 
ninth Regiment, Col. George Dixey ; Two Hundred 
and Fifty-eighth Regiment, Col. John P.Wake; and 
Two Hundred and Sixty-ninth, Colonel Devoe. Brig- 
adier-general Hunt was in command of the New York 
State artillery, and the First Brigade, located here, 
was composed of the Second Regiment, Governor's 
Guards, Colonel Pears ; Ninth Regiment, National 
Cadets, Colonel Slipper; Twenty-seventh Regiment, 
National Guard (present Seventh Regiment), Colonel 
Jones. This formidable list of our local defenders 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 223 

gives one the idea of an army as great as that which 
the war for the Union called into existence. But it 
was a host on paper, for the most part, and experience 
demonstrated the advisability of adopting a policy of 
enlistment in later years. 

When Major-general Macomb rode at the head of 
New York's martial array, the brigadiers were Lloyd, 
Kiersted, Sandford, and Morris. But my eyes did not 
take in the personality of the warriors until such time 
as Brigadier-general Sandford had been promoted to 
the dignity of a major-general, and the brigadiers 
whom I can personally recall are Generals Storms, 
Hall, and Morris — the saddle-maker, the music-deal- 
er, and the poet. This quartet of soldiers were men 
whom I envied in my youth. Their cocked hats 
and glittering epaulets, their prancing steeds and 
clanking sabres, filled my soul with yearnings after the 
battle-field. As for the major-general, he was the god 
Mars incarnate. How eagerly I always waited for his 
wild dash down the street at the head of a blazing 
constellation of gold-laced aides and outriders. When, 
towards mid-day, the command to march was given, it 
was a great day in New York. No such martial sight 
is vouchsafed in these degenerate days. In the ranks 
of the soldiers of that period marched the warriors of 
every nation under the sun. Throughout many regi- 
ments the uniforms of no two companies were the 
same, and the effect was dazzling. Looking from an 
upper balcony, one caught a bird's-eye view of the 
crimson coats of England, the green of Italy, the 
plaids of Scotland, the buff and blue of the old Con- 
tinentals, the blue and red of France, the white coats 
of Austria, the' bizarre uniforms of Poland and Hun- 



224 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

gary, and martial costumes of all colors, that seemed 
to be composed for the occasion. Verily, and in un- 
exaggerated fact, the magnificent monarch who daz- 
zled, the eyes of the maiden Queen of Sheba was not 
arrayed like one of these ! 

As I write of these glories of the militiamen of 
other days, I am reminded of the day when my own 
regiment marched down Broadway en route to the 
front, amid the clapping of hands, and waving of hand- 
kerchiefs, and cheers of assembled multitudes, and 
under escort of one of the commands of which men- 
tion has been made — the old Second Regiment. The 
three months' term for which we had enlisted was 
prolonged to two years, and to many of my comrades 
this meant death on the field of battle, to others 
wounds and imprisonment, and to all long months in 
camp and field that aged us as years age men else-, 
where. We marched away to the burst of martial 
music, and with our full military band. When we 
came back it was with tattered remnants of flags, and 
with not more than lOO of the 800 who had marched 
away. To the sound of fife and drum the bronzed 
and bearded men who had gone out as rosy-cheeked 
youth marched up Broadway, dusty, weary, but crowned 
with the unseen laurels of patriotism. So had my fa- 
thers marched back from Lundy's Lane and Niagara, 
from Monmouth and Stillwater. I thought of it then 
with pride. I write it now with glad and thankful 
pen. 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 225 



CHAPTER XIX 

COLONIAL FOOTPRINTS — HAUNTS OF WASHINGTON AND HOWE — COUN- 
TRY-SEAT OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON — EAST SIDE JOURNEYINGS — 
OLD DAYS IN YORKVILLE AND HARLEM — THE BEEKMAN MANSION 

Going! Going! Gone! 

This has been the croak of the raven of specula- 
tion over many an old colonial mansion that was 
stately even in its decay, but lives now only in mem- 
ory. The homes of a former century that bore the 
names of Lispenard, Warren, Kip, De Lancey, Beek- 
man, Murray, and many another citizen of high re- 
pute in ancient annals can be found now only on 
maps that are yellow with age. The ptim hedges of 
box, the groves of locust-trees that were so fragrant 
in the spring-time, the gardens filled with hollyhocks 
and poppies and white roses, with feverfew and sage 
and all warrantable herbs, the summer beauty of beech 
and elm and tulip tree, have vanished with the people 
who moved amid them and loved them. Into the 
velvet of the lawn the iron tire of the contractor's 
chariot, synonyme of the material progress of the 
age, has carved its cruel way, and a row of tenement- 
houses follows the line of broad piazzas. It seems a 
pity that the quaint old mantel-piece, whose tiles told 
to the young aristocrats of a hundred years ago the 
story of Elijah, the Prodigal Son, or Jonah, with such 
serene violation of the laws of perspective ; the shab- 



226 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



by old mirrors that reached from ceiling to floor, and 
that still told the glory of the brave men and fair 
women whose forms once flashed before them ; the 

broad stair- 
cases guard- 
ed by tall ma- 
hogany bal- 
ustrades, all 
black \v i t h 
age, up which 
swept the 
belles of co- 
lonial New 
York, passing 
fair, in gowns 
of India-silk, satin 
petticoats, high- 
heeled shoes, patch- 
es and powder, 
under escort of gen- 
tlemen who were 
elegant in velvet of 
all colors, brocaded 
waistcoats, lace 
neck-cloths, silken stockings, and diamond buckles, but 
who were ever ready to draw the rapier in defence of 
honor — it seems a pity, I say, that these should van- 
ish under the touch of the auctioneer's hammer. Yet, 
perhaps, it is better so; better that the old home- 
stead should be torn down by an unknown vandal 
than it should linger to its decay in stage after stage 
of helpless, hopeless ruin. Certainly if the old man- 
sion on the Battery that was consecrated in history 




APTHORPE MANSION, BLOOMINGDALE 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 227 

by Washington's presence is razed by the same hand 
that rears a monument to the most despicable of 
English spies, it might be well to prevent a repetition 
of the sacrilege by levelling all our existing colonial 
monuments to the ground. Welcome the hammer of 
the auctioneer sooner than the touch of the speculat- 
or in patriotism, or the slow lapse into architectural 
senility which would turn the banqueting-hall of Earl 
Cornwallis into a hen-roost. 

One Sunday afternoon I visited the old Apthorpe 
Mansion that used to face the Hudson River and the 
Bloomingdale Road, but now is hemmed in by Ninth 
and Tenth avenues at Ninety- first Street, and is 
threatened on all sides by the bewildering touch of 
improvement. The full glory of the warm April sun 
lay upon the old place. Yet, though it was a centre 
of desolation, there was a remnant of individual maj- 
esty in the dwelling and its surroundings. No one 
could mistake its birth for other than colonial. The 
great pillars from roof to porch, the stately gables 
over door and window, the broad reception -hall ex- 
tending from front to rear, the height of ceilings 
above and below, were all proof of antiquity clear 
as print to the eye. If more evidence was needed, in- 
side were the antique dining-room, with walls and 
mantel-piece and ceiling of oak, n -w blackened by 
age, whose great panels and joists were imported from 
England in the days of colonial sjjlendor that pre- 
ceded the Revolution. Outside was the ample lawn 
stretching down towards the river, dotted with groves 
of elms, locusts, button -wood, and ancient cherry — 
great trees that required more than one man to 
span their girth, beneath whose shaJc half <i dozen 



228 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

generations of youth and beauty had disported them- 
selves. 

As I stood alone upon the porch in the afternoon 
sun, and looked up the river towards the Palisades 
and down towards Castle Point, the air was thick 
with the shadows that trooped up from the past. 
There had been nothing romantic in the ride on the 
elevated train ; there was no sentiment in the dilapi- 
dated surroundings; and the sunshine was the deadly 
foe of anything like an apparition. Yet it seemed to 
me as I stood there as if I had lived another life, in 
which the old mansion, not then weather-beaten as 
now, but stately and untarnished, and set in a brill- 
iant garland of shrubs and flowers, had played a prom- 
inent part. I could hear close at hand the rustle of 
silken dresses and the clank of swords — the merry 
peal of laughter and the jingle of the wine-glass — and 
not far distant I could hear the note of hurried prep- 
aration and the tramp of departing columns. Some 
one in buff and blue — a stalwart young ofificer in 
whose soul I lived — bade silent and sad adieu to a 
fair young girl whose sun-brown curls rippled down 
her neck and coquetted with her dimpled shoulders; 
and I could swear that I had looked into her eyes in 
some state of my existence and madly loved her. Yet 
I — no, he — rode away with the rear-guard, catching 
sight, last of all, of a fluttering handkerchief between 
the locust branches, and of a little, little hand. 

It was an eerie experience, and yet perfectly real 
throughout. I do not know but that it may have been 
I who really carried on that desperate flirtation. Per- 
haps I was married afterwards without my own knowl- 
edge. It may be that I was my own great-grandfa- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 229 

ther, who rode away among the Continental soldiers 
on that day. But I fear that I may be getting out 
of my own depth in thus attempting to philosophize 
— and my grandmother would have told me that it 
served me right for travelling into the country on 
Sunday. One thing I do know — that I shall not 
cavil again at the theory of a state of pre-existence, 
for I solemnly aver that it seemed perfectly natural 
to see a line of scarlet soldiery stretching across the 
Bloomingdale road, and to prepare to hold them in 
check. For it was at this old mansion that Lord 
Howe had his headquarters when the Connecticut 
Rangers and the Virginia Riflemen, under Leitch and 
Knowlton (both of whom were slain), sent the British 
column, headed by the indomitable Highlanders, fly- 
ing across Harlem Plain down towards this point and 
through McGowan's Pass. Here Lord Howe re- 
mained for some days and nursed his wounded honor, 
and Clinton and Carleton and Andre also led the 
minuet in these rooms and gave royalist belles a taste 
of the court splendors of King George. Whether 
this historic house is to be destroyed or to linger yet 
a little longer will be determined by the market value 
of the lots on which it stands.* 

The mansion which Washington occupied as his 
headquarters on the day of the victory at Harlem 
Plains — the Roger Morris house — stands on the 
heights that overlook Harlem River, a little below 

* The Apthorpe mansion, long degraded to a beer-garden, has dis- 
appeared (1892). Its site will soon be covered by " flats." The fine 
cluster of buildings for the new St. Agnes' Chapel of Trinity Parish — 
church, clergy-house, choir and schoolrooms, etc. — stands upon a portion 
of the old Apthorpe ground. 



230 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



the High Bridge. It always seemed to me a strange 
chance that led the American general to this roof. 

The loyalist owner of 
the property had been 
Washington's old com- 
panion-in-arms, and his 
wife was the beautiful 
Mary Phillipse, whom 




THE JUMEL MANSION 



the provincial Colonel Washington, visiting New York 
after the defeat of Braddock and his own brilliant 
achievements on the unfortunate field of Fort Du 
Quesne, had wooed in vain. It will be a pity if no 
one comes forward to purchase and preserve the house 
for its historical association, for as from no point on 
the Island of Manhattan can so commanding a view 
be obtained, so none of the old colonial homesteads 
has so many and varied historical associations. Built 
of bricks brought from Holland, the house has been a 
landmark from the day of its completion. General 
Washington planned his battles in its library, and here 
also he held consultations with the chiefs of the Indian 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 23I 

tribes, and gave his secret instructions to the " spy of 
the neutral ground." The estate was confiscated after 
the Revolution, and then it was purchased by John 
Jacob Astor, who made half a million dollars by his 
speculation. He sold the house to Stephen Jumel, 
who filled the rooms with costly furniture that was 
part of the spoils of French palaces, and embellished 
the grounds with rare trees and shrubs. Madame 
Jumel in her widowhood married Aaron Burr, but 
this alliance with the rude, unlettered woman was of 
short duration, and he left her in disgust and sought 
seclusion on Staten Island. Then for years the old 
woman lived alone, a terror to her servants and 
shunned by her neighbors, and left the legacy of a 
long lawsuit to her relatives. The estate has been 
shorn of its original dimensions and much of its old 
beauty, but the old house remains, as solid and sub- 
stantial as when first built, and, standing on its piazza, 
one sees not only the lower city and Brooklyn Bridge, 
but seven counties in two different States, three rivers. 
Long Island Sound, the bay, and, in a clear atmos- 
phere, a glimpse of the distant ocean.* It was while 
Washington made this brief sojourn at the Morris 
mansion that he had his attention called to Alexan- 
der Hamilton. During his inspection of the works 
thrown up at Harlem for the protection of his army, 

* The Jumel mansion is in sympathetic ownership and occupancy 
(1892), and there is design of purchasing it for perpetual preservation 
by an association. The ground-plan of this etately old house (which 
bears the date 1758 upon the keystone of an arch in the main hall) is a 
square, connected by a narrower parallelogram with an octagon containing 
the room of state. The owners say that from its roof thirteen counties 
are to be seen. — L. 



232 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

the American commander was struck by the skill dis- 
played in the arrangement and disposition of a cer- 
tain fort which was in charge of a young captain of 
artillery. On making inquiry it turned out that the 
name of the officer in question was Alexander Ham- 
ilton (then a youth of twenty), of whom General 
Greene had previously spoken to his superior in terms 
of high praise. Washington at once sought the ac- 
quaintance of the youth, and there and then the 
friendship began which linked their lives and their 
fame together. 

Within sight of the fort he had built, and the field 
upon which he had fought, and within a little more 
than a mile from the Morris mansion. General Hamil- 
ton afterwards selected the site for his suburban home 
— the Grange. This beautiful structure, one of the 
finest remaining specimens of the classic style of archi- 
tecture that our fathers fancied, is situated north of 
One Hundred and Fortieth Street and east of Tenth 
Avenue. Its site, selectejd by Hamilton, cannot be 
excelled for picturesqueness. Magnificent forest trees 
shade the ample grounds, and near the house is a 
cluster of thirteen trees that Hamilton planted with 
his own hand to symbolize the original thirteen States 
of the Union. They were in serious danger of being 
uprooted by the new aqueduct, which passes through 
the grounds, but have happily escaped. How long 
they will continue to stand is problematical. Even 
now it is feared that the house is doomed to destruc- 
tion. The land is in the market, and unless a special 
effort is made to secure its preservation, it will proba- 
bly be taken down and an ambitious modern villa will 
occupy its site. Perhaps Hamilton Terrace, with its 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



233 



proposed beautiful park, its lawns and tasteful dwell- 
ings, will be an improvement upon the dignified old 
homestead, the natural glory of the old forest land- 
scape, and the grove of thirteen trees which emblazon 
history in their tints ; but we who are conservatives 
from a former generation will hardly think so.* 

Speaking of old buildings reminds me that I have 
received a friendly criticism, by post, for not giving 
more details of the Third Avenue, through which I 
passed on my stolen fishing excursion of forty years 
ago. At that time, after leaving Astor Place, there 
was nothing compact in the way of buildings until 
we reached Bull's Head Village, which extended from 
Second to Fourth avenues and from T-wenty-third to 






^':^ 




THE HAMILTON HOUSE 



Twent}'- seventh streets. Here was the great cattle 
mart of the city, and here it had been for twenty 
years. But soon after it was removed to Forty-second 

* See note in Chapter xxvi., p. 330. — L. 



234 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

Street, and thence to Ninety-fourth Street, from which 
point it was transferred to the Jersey shore a few 
years since. The people of old Bull's Head Village 
worshipped in the Presbyterian Church, now standing 
in Twenty-second Street west of Third Avenue; at 
the Twenty-seventh Street Methodist Church, and at 
the little Episcopal Chapel of St. John the Baptist, 
on the east side of Fourth Avenue, near Twenty-third 
Street, which was demolished thirty years ago on the 
completion of the fine church of the same name at 
Lexington Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street. 

After leaving Twenty -seventh Street and Third 
Avenue the traveller was in the country. There was 
no other settlement until Yorkville was reached, nearly 
two miles beyond. Scattered farm-houses, distant vil- 
las, green fields, and bits of woodland made up the 
landscape. The commodious country-seat of Anson 
G. Phelps on the East River was reached from Twenty- 
seventh Street. In the vicinity of Thirty -second 
Street the inhabitants imported from the river the 
name of Kip's Bay, and lent it to the Thompson and 
Henderson homesteads thereabout, and to the grocery 
store that was for many years owned and conducted 
by a brother of Peter Cooper, a very worthy gentle- 
man, who died not long ago, having passed his nine- 
tieth birthday. Sunfish Pond, famous for its eels, as 
well as sunfish and flounders, occupied the site of the 
Fourth Avenue stables at Thirty -second Street, and 
extended westward to Madison Avenue. From this 
pond a brook ran to the East River, following very 
nearly the line of Thirty-second Street. The brook 
was almost dry in summer, but, in times of freshets, it 
overflowed its banks and spread from the foot of 



I 




THE GATES WEEPING WILLOW, 22D STREET AND 3D AVENUE 



Rose Hill at the South to Murray Hill on the north. 
When it was in a desperately angry mood, the resi- 
dents of houses that are still standing could reach the 
avenue only in boats. 

The residence of Peter Cooper — of rare and blessed 
memory always in this city of ours — stood then and 
still stands at the south-west corner of Fourth Avenue 
and Twenty- eighth Street. It was a plain and un- 
pretending structure, and yet substantial withal, as 



236 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

befitted its builder. In front of his residence the 
Eastern Post Road passed to nearly the present line 
of Lexington Avenue, which it continued to follow 
until near Forty-second Street, when it joined Third 
Avenue. On its western side stood several large and 
fine residences owned by opulent Knickerbockers, em- 
bowered in gardens, half hidden by trees, and buried 
in deep lawns — the realization to weary travellers of 
an earthly paradise. On Third Avenue there were 
no dwellings until we reached the point at which the 
old " Cato " Road stretched out towards Second Avenue 
from Forty-third Street to Fifty-first, and thence cir- 
cled around to the " Turtle Bay " region and the fa- 
mous hostlery kept by Cato. Tradition does not tell 
whether he had any other name besides Cato. A 
great cloud of witnesses, principally gray-haired, still 
survive to testify that his dinners and suppers were 
simply incomparable. Everybody who owned or could 
hire a " rig " drove out there at least once a week and 
feasted himself. Burnham, on the Bloomingdale Road 
at Seventy-fourth Street, was Cato's only rival, but a 
formidable one. 

At Forty-ninth Street and Third Avenue was a tiny 
hamlet known as Odellville, which owed its patronymic 
to Mr. Odell, who kept a country tavern at the corner 
first named, and with whom life agreed so well that 
he nearly lived out a century. Just across Third 
Avenue and above Fiftieth Street was the old potter's 
field, which next followed those of Washington and 
Madison squares ; and, strange to say, not far from 
its northern borders was a spring of soft, pure water 
which was extensively carried away in carts to supply 
the distant city. This water readily commanded two 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



237 



cents a pail, and its sale was not discontinued until 
some time after the introduction of Croton water — 
many old people having a preference for it as well as 
a decided distaste for new-fangled aqueducts and 
water brought in pipes. Between Odellville and the 
Five -mile public -house at Seventy -second Street 
there were a few scattered country-houses, many 
fields, some considerable forest tracts, and then came 
the village of Yorkville. Half a century ago this was 
quite an extensive settlement, reaching from Eighty- 
third to Eighty-eighth streets, compactly built on both 
sides of Third Avenue and to Second and Fourth 
avenues on the intersecting streets. The village must 




VAN DEN HEUVEL (AFTERWARDS " BURNHAM'S ") HOUSE. 



238 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

have numbered more than a hundred houses, with 
three or four churches and a dozen stores. It never 
was a pretty place, but down towards the East River, 
and facing that picturesque stream, were some superb 
country residences in those days — such as the Scher- 
merhorn mansion at the foot of Seventy-third Street, 
and the Riker homestead at the foot of Seventy-fifth 
Street. Elegant lawns stretched down to the river- 
front, and from the ample piazzas the scene was a 
panorama of beauty. 

The Six-mile Tavern awaited the thirsty pilgrim at 
the corner of Ninety-seventh Street and Third Avenue. 
Our excellent forefathers always placed a mile-stone 
and a tavern together, by a gracious instinct which 
held that the dust of which our mortality is composed 
needed moistening at the end of a mile's march. It 
was a good doctrine to stick to. The newest im- 
ported idea allows three saloons upon a single block 
on our busiest avenues. But our progenitors were be- 
hind the times — good men, but they did not under- 
stand human nature. They believed in a man owning 
as much land as he could manage comfortably, and 
only taking as much drink as was good for him. The 
new doctrinaires deny man's right to own any land, 
and insist that he shall impose no restriction on his 
own or his neighbor's right to drink all that he wishes. 
Thus we live and learn. But this is a digression. 
From the Six-mile Tavern we begin to descend the 
valley towards Harlem. It is a rough road. To the 
left is an abrupt stone ledge that runs up into Mc- 
Gowan's Pass ; to the right are the marshes of Harlem 
Commons, through which the East River extends up 
to the avenue for the distance of a mile. There was 







tORT CLINTON, AT M'GOWAN'S PASS 



not a house to be seen until One Hundred and Second 
Street was reached, at which point a lane turned down 
to the celebrated Red House at First Avenue and 
One Hundred and Sixth Street, where a trotting 
course called together the owners of fast horses, es- 
pecially on Sunday afternoons. 

At One Hundred and Sixth Street the canal 
crossed the road, and beyond this point and up to 
One Hundred and Twentieth Street there were a few 
scattered houses, mostly detached, but here was again 
quite a settlement. Many of the houses still stand, 
transformed into places of business. At One Hun- 
dred and Twenty-fifth Street was a tavern which now 
figures as a drug-store, and from this point the village 
of Harlem began. Up to the time of the advent of 
the horse -cars, Harlem contained some two hundred 
houses, scattered over nearly a mile square, from Fifth 



240 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



Avenue to the East River. Among the more notable 
residences were those of Dr. Quackenbush, Judge In- 
graham, Isaac Adriance, Charles Henry Hall, Andrew 
McGowan, and John Van Voorhis. At this time One 
Hundred and Twenty-ninth Street was the only paved 
thoroughfare north of Astor Place. Mr. Hall was a 
city Alderman in 1832, and was one of a committee 
appointed during the prevalence of the cholera to 
visit Quarantine and report. Within a fortnight all 
of his colleagues had died, and Alderman Hall at- 
tributed his escape to the salubrity of his country 
residence at Harlem. His house still stands on a 
knoll just west of Fifth Avenue, a spacious edifice, 
but much dilapidated. 

That is the minor key running through most of the 
descriptions of old haunts of history in our city — 
stately, spacious, but dilapidated! I used to think of 
this years ago when I looked at the shabby ruin of 
the superb old Beekman mansion which used to stand 
just west of First Avenue, between Fifty- first and 

Fifty-second streets. 
Its windows looked 
out on Turtle Bay ; 
its garden, green- 
house, and lawns 
were models of per- 
fection in their prime; 
its interior was ele- 
gant and left nothing 
to be desired. Here 
Baroness Riedesel 
had her home after her husband was captured at Sara- 
toga. In one of its rooms Andr6, the spy, spent his 




THE BEEKMAN HOUSE 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



241 



last night in New York before going out to meet dis- 
honor. Here Lord Howe passed sentence of death 
on Nathan Hale, the martyr spy of the Revolution, 
in whose honor New York has not erected the monu- 
ment he deserves. Yet with all these associations 
I was not sorry to find the Beekman house torn 
down, for I had felt that the ghosts of its former oc- 
cupants, if they were permitted to return to earth, 
would annihilate themselves with grief over its decay. 




FIRE IN OLDEN TIMES 



242 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



CHAPTER XX 

A CIVIC PANTHEON — FIRST BLOOD OF THE REVOLUTION— MERCHANTS 
WHO WERE STATESMEN — THE DISINHERITED DAUGHTER — IN AN 
OLD TAVERN 

It has always appeared strange to me that New 
York merchants seem to know or care so little about 
the great names that have adorned the commerce of 
this city. There is ^lo harm in erecting statues to 
Lafayette, Seward, and Franklin, or in placing Wash- 
ington on his feet in Wall Street, and on horseback in 
Union Square ; but it would look better for the local 
pride of the great metropolis if her citizens reared on 
the old historic Commons on which the Declaration 
of Independence was read to the troops in the pres- 
ence of Washington — the present City Hall Park — 
heroic statues to the two great merchants of this city, 
Francis Lewis and Philip Livingston, who signed the 
Declaration. It would tell the story of the time when 
there was a political genius as well as a commercial 
power among the merchants of our city, and the aris- 
tocracy of business was as much recognized as that of 
birth, and far more highly honored. If the Chamber 
of Commerce magnified its of^ce as the old-time mer- 
chants magnified their position, the monuments to 
the commercial giants of the past would almost rear 
themselves. 

As I look back to the days of Lewis and Living- 
ston and their compeers, I am surprised at the part 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



245 



they played in public. New York was a little city, 
but it felt its importance and exacted its full meed of 
respect. A century and a half ago it struck its first 
decisive blow for the liberty of the Press. It sent a 
committee on board the ship London, and they threw 
the cargo of tea overboard in the bay, on April 22, 
1774, in broad daylight and without any attempt at 
disguise. Before this it had organized the Sons of 
Liberty, " to transmit to our posterity the blessings 
of freedom which our ancestors have handed down to 
us," and they met the British soldiery in open battle 
on Golden Hill two months before the Boston massa- 
cre and five years before the fight 
at Lexington. Indeed, New York 
has every right to claim that the 
blood of her citizens was the first 
that was shed in the cause for free- 
dom. It was her merchants that 
seized the battery and the fort, 
and turned the guns on his Maj- 
esty's frigate Asia ; that captured 
the wagons loaded with arms un- 
der escort of the Royal Irish 

Regiment ; that carried off all the type from the of^ce 
of the Royal Gazetteer and melted it into bullets ; that 
pulled down the equestrian statue of King George on 
the Bowling Green, and had it speedily transmuted 
into cartridges, fulfilling the threat of one of their 
number that the British troops should have " melted 
majesty fired at them." That was a magnificent ros- 
ter of patriotism which included the names of Peter 
and Philip Livingston, John Alsop, Isaac Low, John 
Wiley, Isaac Sears, Marinus Willett, Alexander Mc- 




PLAN OF FORT GEORGE, 
BATTERY 



246 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

Dougall, John Broome, Leonard Lispenard, Henry 
Rutgers, Isaac Roosevelt, Duane, Jay, Cruger, Bay- 
ard, Clinton, etc. The list is too long to print even as 
a roll of honor, and the grand little city was as proud 
of her sons as they were jealous of her honor. 

But I must try to come to the present century, even 
if I have to run back and make a fresh start. When 
Francis Lewis, son of the Dean of St. Paul's Cathe- 
dral in London, a sturdy, brainy young Welshman, 
landed in this city, with a cargo of which he was part 
owner, in 1735, he found it alive with excitement. Pe- 
ter Zenger, publisher of the New York Gazette, was 
on trial for seditious libel. It had been ordered that 
his paper should be burned on the Commons " by the 
pillory," at the hands of the common hangman, in the 
presence of the Mayor and Recorder, and he had been 
cast into prison and denied pen, ink, and paper. The 
liberty of the Press was endangered, and New York 
burned to vindicate the majesty of the fourth estate. 
The services of Andrew Hamilton, the silver-tongued 
leader of the bar in Philadelphia, then the largest city 
in the colonies, were secretly engaged in behalf of 
Zenger. It was a trial that shook the New World. 
Hamilton's eloquence swept everything before it, and 
the jury promptly returned a verdict of not guilty. 
A public dinner was tendered the great barrister by 
the corporation, and on this occasion the Mayor pre- 
sented him with the freedom of the city in a magniii- 
cent gold snuffbox purchased by private subscription. 
The whole city escorted him to the barge that was to 
convey him to Philadelphia, amid the booming of can- 
non and the waving of banners. 

Into this seething little volcano of popular struggles 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



247 



after the rights of citizenship young Lewis was pre- 
cipitated. It was the moulding of his manhood. Nev- 
er hesitating for an instant, he ranged himself on the 
side of the people as against the Crown, and when the 
time came for this grand old merchant of New York 
to prove his sincerity by sacrifice, he laid all that he 
had upon the altar of his country. It was but the 
embryo of a city to which the youth of twenty-one 
came in 1735. Its population was then less than nine 
thousand, and it lay entirely below the Commons. 
Young Lewis went at once into partnership with Mr. 
Edward Annesley in the foreign trade ; their store 
was in Dock Street, near the Merchants' Exchange, 
that then stood in Broad Street, between what are 
now Pearl and Water streets. And here comes in a 
sweet touch of romance, in the story of how the young 
stranger wooed and won for his wife fair Mary Annes- 
ley, sister of his partner, and the acknowledged belle 




THE ROYAL EXCHANCE, BROAU STREET 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 249 

of the city. A man of wonderful enterprise, Mr. Lewis 
visited Russia to make business connections, was ship- 
wrecked off the coast of Ireland, traversed the West 
Indies, and was the sole survivor of the massacre of 
Oswego when Montcalm and his Indian allies capt- 
ured that city. The red men spared his life because 
of their superstition. Owing to the resemblance be- 
tween the Welsh language and the Indian dialects, 
Mr. Lewis was able to converse with them and make 
himself understood, and their traditions of the Mes- 
siah from beyond the great seas led them to look upon 
the speaker of this strange tongue — the ghost of the 
tongue they spoke among themselves — with an awe 
that stayed their hands from slaughter. 

So the years went by, filled with commercial tri- 
umphs, and when the battle of Lexington was fought 
the news that upheaved the continent found Francis 
Lewis retired from business and enjoying the vaca- 
tion of life in his pleasant country-seat at Whitestone. 
Then his country called him, and he obeyed. As early 
as 1765 he had been a member of the Provisional Con- 
gress that opposed the Stamp Act, and in 1775 he was 
elected to the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, 
where he achieved immortality as quietly as he had 
won the business triumphs of his life by affixing his 
signature to the Declaration of Independence. Later 
in the same year his Long Island dwelling was plun- 
dered by British soldiers, his valuable library was de- 
stroyed, and his wife made prisoner and retained for 
several months in confinement, under such circum- 
stances of cruelt}- as broke down her health and 
brought her quickly to the grave. Yet the old mer- 
chant kept right onward. One of the wealthiest men 



250 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

of the city and the time, he perilled everything for 
the good cause, and he lost everything. It was enough 
for him that the cause of justice and a people's liber- 
ties won. Yet it came to pass that the sunset of his 
life was peace and pleasantness. In his home on Cort- 
landt Street he saw the century close. At seventy he 
was chosen vestryman of Trinity Church. Twenty 
years later, on December 30, 1803, he died, when his 
years had reached fourscore and ten, and was rever- 
ently interred in Trinity church-yard. 

Francis Lewis, eldest son of the old signer, was a 
man of influence in his day, marrying Elizabeth, 
daughter of Daniel Ludlow, an eminent merchant, 
and leaving many descendants. One of his daughters 
married Samuel G. Ogden, who was a distinguished 
merchant of New York at the opening of the present 
century. The second son, Morgan Lewis, was a much 
more famous man. Taking up arms at the beginning 
of the Revolutionary struggle, he distinguished him- 
self at Stillwater, where he was the ofl[icer who received 
the surrender of Burgoyne's troops, and rose to the 
command of a regiment. In the war of 18 12 he was 
a major-general, did good service at the Niagara fron- 
tier, and had charge of the defences of New York. In 
looking up his military record I was surprised to find 
that in November, 1775, Morgan Lewis was appointed 
first major of the Second Regiment, of which John Jay 
was colonel. I had never heard of the distinguished 
jurist as a soldier, and I find that other important du- 
ties intervened, and that he did not accept the com- 
mand. Equally competent in the forum and the field, 
Morgan Lewis served as Attorney-general and Chief- 
justice of the Supreme Court of this State, and was 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 251 

elected Governor and afterwards United States Sena- 
tor. In 1779 he married Gertrude, daughter of Chan- 
cellor Livingston. Their only child, a daughter, be- 
came the wife of Maturin Livingston. For forty years 
or more the Governor occupied a spacious double man- 
sion at the corner of Church and Leonard streets, 
where he dispensed a patriarchal hospitality. From 
this house he was buried on April ii, 1844. I recall 
the occasion. As Governor Lewis was President-gen- 
eral of the Society of the Cincinnati and Grand Mas- 
ter of Masons, there was to be a great display, and 
every school-boy in town — of whom I was one — was 
anxious to see it, and I think we were all there. The 
military, the veterans of the Cincinnati, the martial 
miisic, and the paraphernalia of the Freemasons made 
an imposing and stately procession. The streets were 
thronged with people on the whole line of march, from 
the house on Leonard Street to St. Paul's Church, 
where the funeral services were held — Trinity Church 
being then in process of rebuilding. I remember that 
I had eyes only for one man, the venerable Major 
Popham, last survivor of the original members of the 
Cincinnati, whom George Washington had commis- 
sioned, who was hale and hearty at ninety-two, and 
looked as if he might round the century. There had 
been talk of this veteran at my home, and with the 
old Revolutionary colonel lying in his cofifin, the ma- 
jor who survived him became to my eyes almost co- 
eval with the Pharaohs, and I watched him and won- 
dered what thoughts were throbbing under his white 
hairs, and what memories of other days were tugging 
at his heart. 

But there was a daughter whom old Francis Lewis 



252 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

dearly loved, and she nearly broke his heart by mar- 
rying a British ofificer, Captain Robertson. Her father 
threatened to disinherit her ; but when did love ever 
pay heed to either threats or bribes ? The lovers 
sought the aid of Dr. Inglis, rector of Trinity Church, 
and afterwards Bishop of Nova Scotia, a devoted loy- 
alist, and he secretly married them. Then they sailed 
for England, and the old man forbade mention of his 
daughter Ann in his presence, and crossed her name 
out of his will. Captain Robertson and his wife had 
six children, and two of their daughters married Eng- 
lish bishops. The second daughter became the wife 
of the Rt. Rev. Dr. John Bird Sumner, Bishop of 
Chester, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. 
Another wedded Bishop Wilson, of Calcutta. 

Philip Livingston, born in the days when it was 
quaintly provided that " upon the Feast Day of St. 
Michael the Archangel yearly" the Lieutenant-gov- 
ernor and council should appoint the mayor, became 
a graduate of Yale College, but turned his attention 







FOOT OF WALL STPEET AND FERRY-HOUSE, 1629 




FOOT OF WALL STREET AND FERRY-HOUSE, 1746 



to business at once, and was elected alderman before 
he was thirty. Possessed of the mercantile instinct, 
he made money. It could not be otherwise, for he 
knew the value of advertising, and whatever he had 
for sale will be found in the newspaper columns of his 
day. Here, for instance, is a notice that there is " to 
be sold by Philip Livingston, at his store in the New 
Dock, near the Ferry stairs," Irish linens, black and 
blue peelong, needles and teakettles, breeches and sper- 
maceti candles, pork and knee-buckles, combs and Bo- 
hea tea, brass thimbles and a cargo of choice Teneriffe 
wine just imported ! Fancy a signer of the Declara- 
tion of Independence dealing out tape and snuff, ivory 



254 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

combs, and split-horn knives and forks ; and yet this 
was what PhiHp Livingston was doing when, in 1774, 
he was sent to the first colonial Congress at Philadel- 
phia. Elected to each successive Congress, he died in 
the harness, at York, Pa., in the darkest hour of the 
country's need, but with a sublime faith in her future. 
Like Francis Lewis, he proved his faith by his works. 
As soon as his signature had been affixed to his coun- 
try's magna charta, he sold a large part of his prop- 
erty to sustain the public credit. That was the way 
in which a New York merchant did business a century 
ago. 

There was a noted place of resort for the patriots 
and politicians in those days. It was the King's 
Arms' Tavern, on the west side of Broadway, between 
what were then Crown Street and Little Prince, or 
Cedar and Liberty streets of the present day. Old 
Johnny Battin has often told me of its glories and 
pointed out its locality, for he, like the rest of the 
British ofificers of his day, knew all about the myste- 
ries of its tap -room, and was full of traditions that 
connected Howe and Clinton and Cornwallis with its 
junketings. An antiquated gray-stone building whose 
lower windows reached down to the broad piazza in 
front, it had no buildings intervening between it and 
the Hudson, which then came nearly up to Green- 
wich Street. Flower-gardens filled the rear, while the 
front was shaded by a row of magnificent catalpas. 
On top was a spacious cupola, which gave a fine view 
from Lady Warren's country-seat at Greenwich to 
Staten Island, and from Paulus Hook to the Breuck 
elen Heights. ,. It was up the spacious entrance to 
the King's Arms that Lord Cornbury rode upon his 



i 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 257 

well-trained horse, and astonished the landlord by de- 
manding a stirrup-cup in the saddle. A spacious bar- 
room furnished with little boxes screened by silken 
curtains, a still more spacious dining-room furnished 
with that greater rarity of a century ago, a carpet, a 
spacious piazza on which the beaux of the period 
lounged and ogled the pretty women that passed — 
this was the spot that cradled early meetings of the 
Committee of Fifty, which set the ball of the Rev'olu- 
tion rolling in New York and began the successful re- 
bellion against crown and king. 

These pictures of the past came back to me one 
afternoon as the cars of the elevated railway whirled 
me past our one statue of a modern merchant of New 
York, and set me thinking of King George's broken 
crown, and two staid old business men of Gotham 
who had so far forgotten dollars and cents as to place 
their necks voluntarily in a halter, risking the forfeit- 
ure of all that they had of worldly goods in addition 
to their lives. What manner of men were they, I 
wondered, who could do and dare so much, and w^hat 
manner of men were they, their successors, who could 
forget it? How many business men — how many of 
New York's rich men — know where sleep the ashes of 
Francis Lewis and Philip Livingston? Happily they 
made not their sacrifices to be seen of men or re- 
warded by them. Sweet is their sleep beneath the 
grasses wet by God's dews as if a nation had reared 
a marble pile above to pierce the skies and commem- 
orate their patriotism. The sunshine falls upon the 
trees in the church-yard and dances over their resting- 
places, and the rain visits them with gentle touch, and 
they shall break from the loving arms of dear Mother 



258 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



Earth just as gladly, when the trump of the last Easter 
sends forth its call, as though their graves had been 
made a point of pilgrimage for a thousand centuries. 
And yet — and yet — it would not be a bad thing for 
New York to remember the children of whom she has 
all reason to be proud, and whose honor is her glory. 




t K i ftit 




SUGAR-HOUSE IN LIBERTY STREET 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 259 



CHAPTER XXI 

TEAKETTLES AS MODES OF MOTION — TWO LEAVES FROM AN OLD MER- 
CHANT'S ITINERARY — QUAKER NOOKS AND COVENANTERS' HAUNTS 
— CITY FARM-HOUSES — UP BREAKNECK HILL — HARLEM LANE IN ITS 
GLORY — SUMMER ATTRACTIONS OF MANHATTAN STREETS 

" Dox't talk to me," said my grandmother — and 
when that revered woman made use of this emphatic 
preface, I knew that something as infalHble as the acts 
passed by the Senate and Assembly of the Medes and 
Persians was to follow — " don't talk to me, Felix, for 
I always felt that it was flying in the face of Provi- 
dence to use a teakettle to travel with. Wasn't I on 
board the Samson one Fourth of July when the upper 
deck fell through and crushed some of my friends to 
death, and didn't we run over a cow and skin it when 
we were going to Rahway? I am out of all patience 
with steamboats and locomotives. No, I am not go- 
ing one step out of town this summer. When I want 
to go into the country, I'll take the Bloomingdale om- 
nibus and visit my friends. There's all the country I 
want on this side of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and I can 
get there without a sputtering teakettle to drag me." 
I confess to have grown up in these late years into 
my grandmother's state of mind — believing that there 
is no spot on earth so beautiful as this city, and hav- 
ing every year less inclination to leave it. I crave no 
distant journeyings; my heart turns to no other peo- 
ple. At home among the swarming streets, I would 



26o . A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

not exchange their summer sights and sounds for 
Newport sands or Adirondack woods. 

Speaking of journeys, here is the itinerary of two 
journeys made by an old merchant of this city, written 
by a nonagenarian hand that is lifeless now, but that 
had a vigorous clasp for a friend only a few short 
weeks ago. It is the record of his first and last jour- 
neys between New York and Philadelphia, and pre- 
sents an extremely suggestive contrast. The old 
merchant writes : 

"Previous to the year 1817 the mail service be- 
tween the two cities, as almost everywhere else in the 
United States, was in a most unsatisfactory condition. 
About that time Gov. Daniel D. Tompkins set him- 
self to establish a shorter mail route, and with this 
view opened the Richmond County turnpike across 
Staten Island, where he already owned nearly the 
whole of the North Shore, with the land under water 
and the Quarantine Ferry. About February 20, 1820, 
there was a severe thunder-storm, which apparently 
broke up the winter, as there was none to speak of 
afterwards, though there was plenty of disagreeably 
cold weather. Towards the middle of March business 
called me to Philadelphia, and I availed myself of 
Governor Tompkins's shortened route for the trip, of 
which here is the history : I was boarding at No. 40 
Broadway, and it was a very cold, raw March morning, 
when, at five o'clock, I was summoned to the carriage 
at the door — which carriage turned out to be a great, 
heavy, lumbering stage-coach, in which, on entering, I 
found five other half- frozen passengers. We were 
driven down to Pier No. i, North River, and there 
transferred to the steamboat Hercules, a veritable tub, 



i 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 263 

with no saloon nor protection on deck, and only a 
small unventilated cubby-hole down-stairs, called by 
courtesy the cabin. After a most uncomfortable pas- 
sage we landed at Quarantine, Staten Island, and 
were placed in large four-horse stages, in which we at 
once started on our journey, passing over the Rich- 
mond County Turnpike, the hardest, roughest road I 
had ever travelled, crossing the Kill von Kull to Perth 
Amboy, and thence to Trenton, where we arrived after 
dark. The road from Perth Amboy to Trenton re- 
deemed the Richmond Turnpike by contrast, it was so 
much worse. We remained at Trenton all night, for 
we were thoroughly exhausted and needed rest, and 
next morning took steamboat to Philadelphia, which 
we reached a little after ten o'clock, being thus en- 
abled to deliver the mail from the New York Post- 
office to the office in Philadelphia in the almost in- 
credibly short time of thirty hours. So much for the 
fast mail delivery in 1820. Sixty-five years afterwards, 
on Tuesday, May 26, 1885, at 5 r.M., I left Victoria, 
Vancouver's Island, British Columbia, by the Northern 
Pacific Railroad for New York. After a most pleas- 
ant journey I arrived at the Pavilion Hotel, New 
Brighton, Staten Island, on that day week, having 
travelled 3500 miles in seven days without the slight- 
est feeling of fatigue. I timed the distance from Phila- 
delphia to New York — or, rather, to the terminus at 
Jersey City — a few minutes less than two hours. So 
I have seen the time between the two cities shortened 
from thirty hours to two, with luxury of travel sub- 
stituted for discomfort." 

The old merchant has gone a longer journe}' since 
he wrote this record, and on still swifter wings than 



264 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

those of steam. He loved New York, as well he 
might, for he had been in business here for more than 
sixty years, and it was a comfort to him, as the silver 
cord of life was loosened, to remember that his dust 
would rest within the city's confines, and in hearing of 
the tramp of its myriad feet and the roar of its sleep- 
less trafific. In the last lines his hand penned he 
wrote: "I hope that in your tour you will not omit 
that gem of country churches, the church of my affec- 
tions, where I was married in 1825, in which my chil- 
dren were baptized, and where wife and children, 
brothers and sisters, are entombed — namely, St. Mark's 
Church, in the Bowery. It was situated in a true 
bower)' in those days, constituted by a succession of 
leafy bowers. There are no ties more binding to a 
feeling heart than attachment to the graves of our 
kindred, and I have cherished with wonderful love for 
more than half a century the little green church-yard 
that surrounds the old Bowery ' chapel ' which Peter 
Stuyvesant built and endowed, and which his heredi- 
tary enemies afterwards consecrated to their own 
form of worship." 

I have already spoken of this ancient and once re- 
nowned edifice, which, like old Trinity, is a landmark 
among a strange people who have to be taught its 
history — a landmark which, I trust, will never be re- 
moved. Its story is part of the city's history, and if 
its foundations were removed away from the region 
of the ancient " bouweries " of New Amsterdam, its 
record would be meaningless. What is needed to 
accentuate the good it has accomplished and is still 
doing is a shaft to the memory of hard-headed Peter 
Stuyvesant, last and most valiant of the old Dutch 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 265 

Governors of the ancient Holland colony. Shaft and 
church together would mark the complete blending 
of religion and patriotism which produces the most 
perfect of citizens. 

No, I do not go into the country for the summer. 
The newspapers are filled with advertisements of 
fresh country air, delightful sea-breezes, the joys of 
lake and mountain and ocean during the dog-days, 
but they have no attraction for me. I am content 
with the city, even in the heated term, for I have 
learned all its secrets, and know just where to turn for 
shelter from the torrid skies, just how to enjoy a 
day's outing, just when to look for the refreshing 
evening breeze to lift the curtain at my window. Be- 
sides, I cannot part with the streets filled with people 
"as trees walking," as changeful as the leaves of the 
forest. The country road, half-hidden by trees through 
which the stars shine dimly, has a charm of its own, 
but it cannot compare with the broad avenue in which 
electricity creates a second daylight, which is terraced 
by long lines of shop -windows glittering with the 
wares of all nations, and whose sidewalks present a 
bewildering array of the fair faces of young girls and 
the gentle graces of matronhood. As if there were 
perpetual moonlight in our parks, the shadows of the 
trees make a wonderful lace -work on the pathways, 
and long processions of lovers, seeking the ark of mat- 
rimony in pairs, as all animated creation swept into 
Noah's ship of fate, forever wander there, and forever 
reveal in their happy faces the story of our first fa- 
ther's love. If I could take these with me — the 
churches and shops, the libraries and picture-galleries, 
the theatres and hotels, the beehive homes, the pave- 



266 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

ments, and their occupants — I might be persuaded to 
desert the city of my love ; but until this is possible I 
am content to remain here in town. 

What is there that I need which the city will not 
supply? There is no sea-breeze that blows on distant 
coasts that is half so sweet as that which sweeps over 
the Battery, and comes freighted with memory as well 
as health. There are no stretches of rural landscape 
more beautiful than those which sweep down to Kings- 
bridge, along the Harlem, or up beyond Manhattan- 
ville and around Fort George. I know where to find 
traces of village life in those ancient parts of the city 
that were once known as Greenwich Village and Chel- 
sea, Bowery Village and Yorkville, but which to this 
generation are only handed down as a tradition. I 
know where to go to find the fragments of the once 
powerful old Scotch Presbyterian colony (who opened 
in this city nearly a century ago the first theological 
seminary which New York could boast, and in which 
the famous Rev. James M. Mathews, D.D., was a pro- 
fessor eighty years ago), and to hear droned out in 
the summer afternoons and evenings from old - fash- 
ioned homes, without the intervention of a " kist o' 
pipes," the ancient psalms in w^hich the soul of the 
Covenanter delighted, and which told how 

" Moab my wash-pot is, mj' shoe 
I'll over Edom cast," 

and which provoked piety by putting into rlu'me ev- 
ery verse of the Psalms, and found religious exaltation 
in chanting David's curious criticism of his foes : 

"They through the city like a dog 
Will grin and go about." 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 267 

I know where to go to find a quiet Quaker street, 
whose houses have that unaffected air of repose which 
other homes cannot copy. Whenever I turn the cor- 
ner into this haven of social rest the atmosphere 
seems to change, and care is left behind, and the mind 
grows serenely contemplative. The blinds of the 
houses are carefully closed — this is a peculiarity of 
the neighborhood ; but from the doors of these homes 
come forth such peaceful faces, delicate types of fair 
maidenhood, with downcast eyes, and of happy moth- 
erhood only a shade less beautiful in its maturity of 
charms, as are found nowhere else. 

There are old frame-houses in Orchard and Mar- 
ket streets which recall the time when that neighbor- 
hood was a Quaker settlement, full of gardens and or- 
chards, with comfortable homes set in with trees and 
shrubbery. Old people still live who remember it 
as the garden spot of the city, in whose vicinity young 
couples of a past generation were glad to set up their 
household gods. Market Street, in the days of its 
roistering youth, was known as George Street, and 
had an exceedingly evil repute. A perpetual sound 
of revelry pervaded it, and its inhabitants were of the 
spider family and spared no victims whom their nets 
had enmeshed. The place was an eyesore to the 
Quakers, who, finding that the authorities would do 
nothing to mend matters, adopted their own measures 
of reform. Their plan was radical. They bought up 
the entire property, rebuilt some of the houses, and 
purified all of them, changed the name of the street 
to Market, and then settled down and made their 
homes there. It was a wonderful transformation scene, 
and a very suggestive one to the reformer of a later day. 



268 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

If the summer sojourner in the city wishes for 
change of scene from bricks and mortar, I can take 
him to thick woods that fringe the Hudson, and that 
recall the time when a large portion of the island was 
covered by dense forests. There the primeval oak 
still flourishes, and the lichens yet cling to the rocks 
as in the days when the foot of the Weekquaesgeek 
warrior pressed the mosses so lightly that it failed to 
crush them. Between the rocks and over the fallen 
leaves trickles the ghost of a brook in which trout 
once leaped and played, and which, so tradition says, 
was once powerful enough to turn the wheel of a 
mill where it sprang into the embrace of the Hudson. 
Here is rest from the city's roar, and here is a solitude 
of nature as complete as one can find in the heart of 
the Adirondacks. Come with me for a walk to Tubby 
Hook, and before we have turned homeward you shall 
confess that by land or sea there is no more beautiful 
spot on wdiich the sun shines. Or if you tire of the 
land, let us embark on the waters of the Spuyten 
Duyvil, and up in the creeks which are its tributaries 
we shall find a wilderness of marsh and shrubbery 
which will make us fancy that a hundred miles inter- 
vene between our boat and the guardian statue of 
"Justice" on the City Hall. The old King's Bridge is 
unchanged since the day when the Hessian allies of 
Great Britain under command of Knyphausen marched 
across it to make a raid upon the " neutral ground " 
of Westchester County, and the ancient hostlery of 
the Blue Bell presents the same appearance that it 
did to Lord Howe and his staff when they halted 
there and ordered one of his famous dinners. Tow- 
ards the Hudson is the spot where the Half Moon 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 269 

anchored and had its first battle with the Indians, and 
where its crew dug the first grave on the Island of 
Manhattan. If we turn the other way and sail be- 
yond the steep and wooded headlands known as 
Washington Heights, the river brings us to a battle- 
field of a later day and a different kind. For at the 
bridge which bears his name, General Macomb dammed 
the Harlem River, to the great and general indigna- 
tion of his neighbors. The men of lower Westchester 
reached such a pitch of wrath that they determined 
to take the war into their own hands, and marching 
down to the dam in a body, they removed the obstruc- 
tion and let the river have free passage. Twice this 
was done, and then the dam ceased to exist except in 
name. The authorities have tried in vain to make the 
public patronize their title of Central Bridge; the old 
name, Macomb's Dam Bridge, still lingers gratefully 
among the natives. I remember some twenty years 
ago to have attended church at Mott Haven, and to 
have been horrified to hear the minister announce that 
the annual picnic of the Sunday-school would be held 
during the week *' at the Dam Bridge." 

There are bits of farm scenery on the upper part of 
the island which seem to have remained unchanged 
for a century — little oases of garden and field, with a 
brief stretch of country lane shaded by locust and 
cherry trees. It is noticeable that the houses, like 
the old Bussing farm-house, between One Hundred 
and Forty-sixth and One Hundred and Forty-seventh 
streets, and east of Eighth Avenue, exactly face the 
south, as accurately as if set by compass. The build- 
ers had the correct sanitary idea as well as a proper 
knowledge of comfort. These homes of a dead an- 



270 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

cestry will soon be blotted out. The hand of im- 
provement, a rough and unsentimental fist in its way, 
has already cut a street through Breakneck Hill, and 
the perils of the precipitous road over its crest have 
wellnigh vanished. The highest point of the hill was 
near the intersection of One Hundred and Forty- 
seventh Street with the south side of St. Nicholas 
Avenue, which was opened in 1871 as a prolongation 
of the once celebrated Harlem Lane, which ran from 
the intersection of Eighth Avenue with One Hun- 
dred and Twenty -third Street, diagonally to Sixth 
Avenue, at One Hundred and Tenth Street, on the 
northern end of Central Park. Harlem Lane, now 
St. Nicholas Avenue, was a dead level for the distance 
of three-quarters of a mile, and here the owners of 
fast horses tested their speed on pleasant afternoons, 
while all the sporting world looked on and wondered. 
The prolongation of the lane, before St. Nicholas 
Avenue was projected, was Eighth Avenue, then a 
level earth road to Macomb's Dam, where stood, a 
half century ago, two famous road-houses from which 
the glory has departed, though they still exist. An- 
other road led out of Eighth Avenue to the left, at 
about One Hundred and Forty- first Street, called 
Breakneck Road. It ran up Breakneck Hill, and con- 
tinued along until it intersected Tenth Avenue at 
One Hundred and Sixty-second Street, opposite the 
Jumel mansion, and crossing into the present Kings- 
bridge Road, opposite the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, 
kept on to Kingsbridge, two miles or more beyond. 
This was the steepest, most difficult and dangerous 
road on Manhattan Island, even more wild and pre- 
cipitous than the McGowan's Pass Road at the north 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



271 



end of Central Park. Several fatal accidents occurred 
there and almost innumerable severe ones. 

Why should I go to the country for change of air, 
for recreation, or for comfort, so long as I have all 
these delights at my door, made ready for my enjoy- 
ment? No, For me the breezes shall blow from 
river to harbor ; for me the streets shall every night 
put on their holiday attire ; for me the green spots 
on this island shall shine in summer garb, and the 
waters that gird them in shall twinkle in the sun- 
shine by day and dance with silver gleams by night. 
" Don't talk to me, Felix," said my grandmother, and 
I emphasize her 3ictum out of my own experience; 
" thereJ«^,no spot on earth half so lovely as this city^ 
of New Yorl 




THE INDEPENDENT BATTERY, BUNKER HUA. 



272 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE ANCIENT MILL AT KINGSBRIDGE — MARCHING WITH WASHINGTON 
— A PATROON IN THE HAY-FIELD — GHOSTS OF OLD HOUSES — THE 
STRYKER AND HOPPER MANSIONS — RICHMOND HILL — THE WARREN 
AND SPENCER HOMESTEADS — ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 

One of the pleasantest experiences in the hfe of 
FeHx Oldboy has been the receipt of scores of letters 
in regard to his "Tour." Some of them contain mat- 
ter which seems to be appropriate for incorporation 
in these papers, and which convey interesting points 
in local history or queer bits of mosaic that reveal 
traits of city life which are well worth preserving. 
One of recent date, signed only with initials, relates to 
the historic territory of Kingsbridge. The writer says: 

In touching upon Inwood and the waters of the Harlem and 
Spuyt-den-Duyvil Creek, I hoped you would mention the old 
mill that once stood just to the west of Kingsbridge, and to 
which there was passage over the water, either from the bridge 
or from the New York side of the creek. I remember see- 
ing this old mill as late as the year 1857, and I think that 
shortly after that date it blew down or was carried away by 
the waters of the Spuyt-den-Duyvil after a freshet. This mill 
stood on piles in the middle of the stream on lands under 
water granted by the Mayor and Commonalty of New York 
to Alexander McComb in the year 1800 at a rental of $12.50 
per annum. About the year 1856 my father bought the mill 
and water grant at a foreclosure sale for $1650, and from that 
year to the present the tax has been regularly paid, though the 
mill has gone and all else that belonged to it except the bot- 



i 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 273 

torn of the stream, which presumably is still there. The lease 
from the city provides that a passageway fifteen feet wide 
shall be kept open, so that small boats may freely pass and re- 
pass through the bridge, and the width of the stream seems to 
be thus guaranteed for the future. Can you tell me who built 
the mill that was destroyed thirty years ago, and for what pur- 
poses was it ever used.' 

Whether the mill thus destroyed was the same that 
was built by Frederick Phillipse, Lord of the Manor, 
I do not know, but there was a mill there in 1759, 
which, with house, farm, and bridge, was " to be let, 
and entered upon immediately," in April of that year, 
on application to " the 
Manor of Phillipsburg, 
in the county of West- 
chester," now the city 
of Yonkers. Presuma- 
bly the mill ground 
wheat and corn for the philupse manor-house 

farmers of that county 

and of the upper part of the Island of Manhattan. 
My correspondent writes the name of the famous 
stream at Kingsbridge Spuyt-den-Duyvil, and it is 
curious to note the variety of spelling to which this 
Rubicon of Anthony the trumpeter has been subject- 
ed. Prior to 1693 there was no bridge across the 
stream, but in January of that year the Colonial 
Council met to consider the offer of Frederick Phil- 
lipse the elder to build a bridge at " Spikendevil " 
for the convenience of " cattell " and " waggons," as 
well as the general public. This was the only bridge 
connecting the Island of Manhattan with the main- 
land for sixty years. Madam Knight, in her journal 




274 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

of 1704, recounting her journey from New York to 
New Haven in December of that year, says that about 
three o'clock in the afternoon "we came to the Half- 
way House, about ten miles out of town, where we 
baited and went forward, and about five came to Spit- 
ing Devil, else Kingsbridge, where they pay three- 
pence for passing over with a horse, which the man 
that keeps the gate set up at the end of the bridge 
receives." This Half-way House stood at the bot- 
tom of the hill on the old Middle Road, about One 
Hundred and Seventh Street, between the line of 
Fifth and Sixth avenues. The only road to Boston 
then, and a rough one it was, led across the island to 
Kingsbridge, and here the gates were locked and barred 
at night, and people stood and knocked until a servant 
came from the farm-house fifteen rods distant. It 
was a monopoly, and a grievous one. So oppressive 
did it become that in 1759 Benjamin Palmer built a 
free bridge across the creek just above the old bridge, 
from Thomas Vermilia's land to the farm of Jacob 
Dyckman, and all New York celebrated the event by 
eating "a stately ox roasted whole " on the Bowling 
Green. This took place during the French and Ind- 
ian War, and Palmer made a charge that Colonel Phil- 
lipse had him twice drafted as a soldier in order to kill 
the project, and compelled him to pay £^ for a sub- 
stitute on the first occasion and ;^20 on the second. 
During the war for independence the British burned 
the free bridge in order to prevent the passage of the 
American army across the river, the original bridge at 
this point being defended by a redoubt. 

It is difficult to realize that but a single generation 
can span all the years between the days of George 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 275 

Washington and to-day, and that the sons of men 
who fought in the Revolution are moving among us 
in hale and hearty old age. Somehow, although in 
boyhood I have talked of those days with a score who 
had wielded the sword or borne the flintlock in the 
war for independence, the scenes and men who made 
our country's history in the last quarter of the last 
century seem to have been immeasurably removed 
from us by the mighty tragedy of our war between 
the States. But these modern memories were all 
swept away by a letter which has come to me from 
the son of an officer in the Revolutionary Army, who 
was a conspicuous figure in the procession that en- 
tered New York in triumph on November 25, 1783, 
the day of the city's evacuation by the British troops. 
Col. Christian S. Delavan writes me : 

We — myself and my brothers — commenced keeping a hard- 
ware and furnishing store in the year 1826, and continued so 
from that year until 1849. During many of those years Peter 
Cooper often drove from his glue factory, in the rear of his 
house, north-east corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty eighth 
Street, and came to have a chat with us. In your ramblings 
on Washington Heights you spoke of General Washington 
and his staff entering New York from that point, and the 
British withdrawing their lines as he advanced and finally em- 
barking at the Battery. It was my father, Captain Delavan, 
who, with his light -horse company, led the advance of the 
patriot column into the city. He, with the other officers, par- 
took of a grand dinner at the old tavern (still standing) at the 
corner of Pearl and Broad streets. My brother Charles and 
myself, fast approaching the eighties, are the only two living 
representatives of those who participated in that glorious event 
that gav'^e us a country free from a foreign foe. 

A correspondent sends the following incident, which 




WASHINGTON HOUSE, FOOT OF BROADWAY 

dates back half a century, as illustrative of Gouverneur 
Morris and his times : 



During harvest time, a few years only before your first visit 
to Harlem, an English nobleman whose ancestral patent of no- 
bility dated back to the Norman Conquest, visited this coun- 
try and became the guest of Judge William Jay, of Bedford, 
Westchester County, who entertained him most royally, also 
making calls with him upon the surrounding lords of the 
manor, such as the Livingstons, Van Rensselaers, and Schuy- 
lers to the north, and the Van Cortlandts, Morrises, and Stuy- 
vesants to the south. One bright morning in July the patroon, 
Jay, with his English guest, left Bedford in the judge's travel- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 277 

ling carriage to introduce the nobleman to his brother patroon, 
Gouverneur Morris. They reached the Manor-house just be- 
fore noon, and as they drove to the door met the patroon him- 
self, in his shirt-sleeves, minus coat and vest, with trousers 
tucked into his boots and a scythe over his shoulder, rills of 
perspiration running down his manly face, and his lordly 
brow crowned with an old straw-hat with a hole in the top, 
through which protruded the end of a red bandanna handker- 
chief. At his heels were a little army of laborers, bearing their 
scythes, and also fresh from the meadows where they had been 
mowing. The welcome dinner-bell had summoned them. It 
was a revelation to the English nobleman, but when he had 
seated himself at the hospitable table of his host he forgot all 
about it. For Mr. Morris was a lover of the classics as well 
as of nature, and could not only lead the field with his scythe, 
but could recite whole books of Virgil by heart. 

It has been a pleasure to sit down and converse 
on paper with these unknown correspondents, whose 
name is almost legion, and whose letters have been a 
constant source of encouragement, and also a revela- 
tion of patriotism and local pride that was totally un- 
suspected. Instead of being given up to money, fash- 
ion, and pleasure, the genuine New Yorker possesses 
underneath his quiet exterior a heart that pulsates to 
the history, the growth, and the grandeur of his city. 
He may not wear it on his sleeve, yet it is there. His 
patriotism, indeed, is a good deal like old Bishop Gris- 
wold's religion. When that saintly man of God was 
bishop of the Eastern Diocese — Massachusetts and 
Maine — an ardent young preacher made up his mind 
that as an Episcopalian the bishop must be destitute 
of "vital godliness," and he concluded that he would 
go and convert him. The bishop received him kindly, 
and, on making known his mission, invited him to his 



278 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



study, asked him to be seated, and told him that he 
was ready to hsten. " Bishop, have you got religion ?" 
the young man asked, with great solemnity. " None 
to speak of," responded the bishop, quietly, as he sat 
twiddling his thumbs, as was his custom. The ardent 
evangelist paused, pondered, struck his colors, apolo- 
gized, and left the house convinced that true religion 
did not consist mainly in talk. 

Yesterday I stood in front of the old Stryker man- 
sion, at the foot of Fifty-second Street and the North 




River, and marked the changes and ravages that time 
had wrought. I had known the house when it was 
the seat of an extensive and always hearty hospital!- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 279 

ty, and when it was one of the conspicuous country- 
seats on the lower outskirts of Bloomingdale, having 
a pedigree and history of its own. The old Stryker 
homestead still stands, but it is shorn of its former 
glory. Tenements and stables hedge it in on either 
side, and docks and lumber-yards occupy the place 
where its green lawn used to stretch down to the river- 
edge. Near by the Stryker mansion was the Hopper 
house. The two farms were adjoining, and the fami- 
lies naturally became allied by marriage. It is not ten 
years since the burial-ground of the Hopper family 
stood twenty feet above the level of the street, at the 
corner of Ninth Avenue and Fiftieth Street, an open, 
desolate, unshaded piece of ground, sown with gray 
tombstones, on the nearest of which the passenger 
could read that it was " sacred to the memory of An- 
drew Hopper." The stout old farmer, who had never 
dreamed that the little city at the lower end of the 
island would ever come knocking at his doors and bid- 
ding him move on, had gone comfortably to sleep in 
the belief that his worn-out body would rest undis- 
turbed in the sight of the fields he had tilled and the 
river in which he had sported in his boyhood. 

I think there is nothing sadder in the story of our 
famous houses than the history of Richmond Hill. Of 
its ancient glories I have heard from my grandmother, 
who had been a guest within its walls when it was the 
seat of culture and refinement. I remember the mansion 
as a ruin, when, after it had been opened for a first-class 
theatre, it had passed through the gradations of circus 
and menagerie, and finally had been abandoned. It 
then stood on the line of Charlton Street, some twenty 
feet from Varick, still wearing the adornment of por- 







RICHMOND HILL 



tico and columns, having been removed there from its 
old foundations at the intersection of those two streets. 
Built by Major Mortier, an English ofificer, ten years 
anterior to the Revolution, Washington with his fam- 
ily occupied the house in 1776, whence he removed 
his headquarters to the Roger Morris house, near what 
was then known as the Point of Rocks. Then British 
ofificers came into possession. During the first year of 
the Government under the Constitution, while Wash- 
ington held his Republican Court in Franklin Square, 
Vice-president Adams occupied the Richmond Hill 
house and estate, of which Mrs. Adams wrote to her 
sister that "Nature had so lavishly displayed her beau- 
ties that she has left scarcely anything for her hand- 
maid. Art, to perform." 

It was a beautiful spot then. In front there was 
nothing to obstruct the view of the Hudson. To the 
right fertile meadows stretched up towards the little 



A TOUR AROUND NEW VORK. 2S1 

hamlet of Greenwich Village, and on the left the view 
of the little city in the distance was half hidden by 
clumps of trees and rising hills. There was a broad en- 
trance to the house, under a porch of imposing height, 
supported by high columns, with balconies fronting 
the rooms of the second story. The premises were en- 
tered by a spacious gateway, flanked by ornamental 
columns, at what is now the termination of Macdougal 
Street. Within the gate and to the north was a beau- 
tiful sheet of water, known to men who are still living 
and who skated on its frozen surface when they were 
urchins of tender years, as Burr's Pond. For, after all, 
the chief renown of Richmond Hill is that it was for 
ten years the home of Aaron Burr, and that here the 
lovely and ill-fated Theodosia, his daughter, on whom 
her father lavished the love of his life, dispensed a 
charming hospitality. The guests were the most emi- 
nent men and women of the Old World and the New. 
Talleyrand, Volney, Louis Philippe, Brant, the Indian 
chieftain; senators, ambassadors, authors — all were 
alike charmed with the graceful manners of Theodo- 
sia Burr and the stately hospitality of the home over 
which she presided. No man in all the land was then 
more highly honored than Aaron Burr, Senator and 
Vice-president, whose military record had been brill- 
iant beyond comparison, and to whom the country, 
for which he had perilled his life, delighted to point 
as one of its chief civic ornaments. With his fall, 
crushed with his daughter's loss, the glory of Rich- 
mond Hill departed forever. 

Another old mansion whose features remain im- 
pressed on my memory was the house built by Ad- 
miral Sir Peter Warren in 1740 on the banks of the 



zy>Z \ TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

Hudson, several miles away from the city. It stood 
near the intersection of Charles and Bleecker streets, 
and when it was erected and the grounds laid out, its 
beautiful lawns reached down to the river, and there 
was no other house within the radius of a mile to in- 
tercept the view. Here, when the smallpox was raging 
in the little city, whose outer boundary was just above 
Wall Street, Sir Peter Warren invited the Colonial 
Assembly to meet and escape the plague by adjourn- 
ing to the country. The admiral, forgotten in the 
present day, was a great man in the colony, and quite 
as influential during the administration of Clinton as 
the Governor himself. Time could not spare the hero 
of Louisbourg, but it is a pity that man could not have 
spared the splendid avenues of locusts wdiich Sir Peter 
had planted with his own hand, and which were cut 
down in the summer of 1865, when the old house was 
demolished. 

In the near neighborhood of the Warren mansion 
was the old Spencer homestead, at the corner of 
Fourth and West Tenth streets. It was erected at the 
beginning of the century by Garrett Gilbert, a well- 
known character of that day, who soon ran through 
his fortune and put his homestead up for sale. If a 
spendthrift, however, he was possessed of taste, and 
his cottage, with its peaked roof and veranda front, 
was considered at the time the most beautiful of the 
city's suburban residences. The grounds were laid out 
with great taste, abounding in flowers and fruit-trees ; 
and the fish-ponds in them, fed from a number of cis- 
terns, were the marvel of the day. When the estate 
was sold, Senator Marcus Spencer became its pur- 
chaser, and the house went by his name afterwards, 




1. Battery 2. Castle Williams $. Governor's Island U. 3-Gun Battery 
FORTIFICATIONS AROUND NEW YORK— lSl4 



284 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

and is commemorated by the present Spencer Place. 
During the prevalence of the yellow-fever in 1822 the 
city Post-ofHce was temporarily established at this 
building, but was subsequently removed to the corner 
of Asylum (now Fourth) and Bank streets. A few 
representatives of the magnificent trees which once 
surrounded the house are still standing in West Tenth 
Street ; and after the Spencer mansion was torn down, 
in 1872, Dr. Hall, the Senator's son-in-law, enclosed a 
large portion of the old garden, which lay in the inte- 
rior of the block, as a garden for his residence in West 
Tenth Street, and there it still lies hidden from the 
public eye, bright with flowers and shaded by ancient 
trees, a mute memorial of the last of the old home- 
steads below the homes of the Strykers and Hoppers. 
If the old historic houses of New York cannot be 
preserved, and all seem doomed to pass under the 
hammer of the auctioneer, it would appear that meas- 
ures ought to be taken to preserve the. relics of old 
Revolutionary fortifications. A generation ago the 
upper part of the island was fairly covered with the 
remains of earthworks and redoubts, most of them 
outlined with much distinctness ; and there are octo- 
genarian citizens still living who as boys played in the 
ditches and on the embankments of the fort erected 
on the hill just west of Broadway, between Spring and 
Prince streets. The hand of the builder has levelled 
most of these remains. Tenth Avenue, at Two Hun- 
dred and Twenty-sixth Street, runs through the site of 
Fort Prince, which guarded the approaches to Kings' 
Bridge. The redoubts that crossed Eleventh and 
Twelfth avenues at One Hundred and Sixtieth street 
have disappeared, as has also Cock Hill Fort, that 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 285 

overlooked Spuyten Duyvil Creek at Two Hundred 
and Seventeenth Street. On Washington Heights are 
still to be seen the grassy embankments that marked 
the Citadel of Fort Washington, captured by the Brit- 
ish, and rechristened Fort Knyphausen in honor of 
the Hessian general whose mercenaries had led the 
storming party, and the outlines of Fort Tryon, half 
a mile above, can also be traced. It will be a pity if 
those who have charge of what they are pleased to 
style street improvements are permitted to obliterate 
these monuments of our past glory, and the home of 
the parvenu shall cover the spot where bayonets were 
crossed in deadly conflict, and the men of '"]() fell in 
slaughtered heaps in defence of the liberties of the 
colonies. 

The Revolutionary fortifications that stretched from 
the mouth of Turtle Creek up through McGowan's 
Pass disappeared long ago, and the later earthworks 
thrown up there in 1812, and which I remember to 
have seen in my boyhood, have also gone the w^ay of 
the past. There are men still living Avho helped to 
erect these fortifications, and who have lived to see 
their demolition. Not many of these veterans are 
left, but we old boys can remember when they were 
of little account, and the survivors of the war of the 
Revolution were looked upon as the country's real 
heroes. One of these soldiers of three-quarters of a 
century ago, Col. Charles B. Tappan, belonged to the 
volunteer company commanded by Capt. (afterwards 
Judge) Robert Emmett. He has a very vivid recol- 
lection of the march to Yorkville Heights, where they 
were ordered to report at sunrise, and of digging in- 
trenchments by day in the hot sun and mounting 



286 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

guard on dark and rainy nights. Every able-bodied 
man from the age of eighteen to forty-five was re- 
quired to attend daily drill, and 28,000 men were con- 
stantly under arms to repel an invasion of the enemy. 
Another old friend, who was a butcher's apprentice in 
those stirring days, pointed out to me in after-years 
the remains of a redoubt which he had helped to build 
on the right of McGowan's Pass. It seems that the 
boys became inoculated with the martial fever, and 
they held a meeting in Bayard Street, where fiery 
speeches were made and resolutions were passed ofTer- 
ing the services of one hundred boys, ready to march 
at the beat of the drum. Their proffer was accepted, 
and at six o'clock in the morning, with colors flying, 
a band of music playing, and citizens shouting, the 
bold soldier boys set out for the front — at Yorkville. 
They had not forgotten creature comforts, for a huge 
wagon followed them laden with the best that the 
market afforded. Breakfast was first in order, and 
then the boys set to work in earnest, and at sunset 
had thrown up a breastwork one hundred feet in 
length, twenty in breadth, and four feet high, sodded 
completely. In the centre of the ramparts the boys 
set their flag, which bore on its white ground the in- 
scription : 

" Free trade and butchers' rights, 
From Brooklyn's Fields to Harlem Heights." 

Then, having hailed it with nine hearty cheers, they 
marched back to the Bowery, with drums beating and 
colors flying, and ate and slept as only boys can. 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 287 



CHAPTER XXIII 

POLITICIANS OF THE OLDEN TIME — SAMUEL SWARTWOUT's STRANGE 
CAREER — THURLOVV WEED AND HORATIO SEYMOUR — STATESMEN 
OF THE NEW SCHOOL — HARMONY IN OLD TAMMANY HALL 

A BIT of wisdom which fell from the lips of Mr. 
Pickwick, and which Count Smorltork eagerly caught 
up and transferred to his tablets as " ver good — fine 
words to begin a chapter," read in its transferred con- 
dition as follows: "The word poltic surprises by him- 
self 'a difficult study of no inconsiderable magni- 
tude.' " While this is true, no reminiscence of the 
city of half a century ago would be complete that did 
not revive the memories of the politicians of that day. 
They are worth remembering, too. " There were gi- 
ants in the earth in those days," and zealous partisans 
though they were, their patriotism no less than their 
abilities made them men of mark in the land. De 
Witt Clinton thought it an honor to be an alderman 
of New York, and when the Golden Age returns, in 
which such men as he shall again be willing to take 
up the burdens of office, the era of political rings and 
jobs will pass away. 

"Old Hickory," " the Fox of Kinderhook," " Tip- 
pecanoe and Tyler too," and "the Mill Roy of the 
Slashes " are among my early recollections of political 
badges and war cries. I remember often to have seen 
famous Sam Swartwout, whom Andrew Jackson be- 



286 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

queathed as a legacy to his successor, extracting a 
promise from Mr. Van Buren hat he should not be 
disturbed in his office of Collector of the Port until 
his term had expired. Of colossal build, erect, and 
straight as an arrow — until age had bent his stalwart 
form a little in ripening it for death's harvest — Sam 
Swartwout was a man of mark when he passed along 
the street. He came of Revolutionary stock, and with 
his two brothers served in the War of 1812. They 
dealt extensively in paints and dyewoods, and almost 
as largely in politics. John, the oldest brother, was 
appointed United States Marshal for this district by 
President Jefferson, but was removed by the latter at 
the beginning of his second term, when he made a 
clean sweep of all the friends of Aaron Burr, to whom, 
when he was Vice-president, he had assigned the New 
York appointments. This made trouble at once. 
John Swartwout challenged De Witt Clinton to mor- 
tal combat, and they met on the old duelling-ground 
at Hoboken. The challenger was brought home with 
a bullet in his thigh. Richard Riker, afterwards Re- 
corder of the city, and known in political and social 
tradition as "Dickey" Riker, made some unpalatable 
criticism upon the matter, and was promptly chal- 
lenged by Robert Swartwout. They met on the field 
of honor across the Hudson, and Mr. Riker was wound- 
ed so severely that he limped to the close of his life. 
It was an era of personal responsibility. Men were 
held to strict account for their criticism of contempo- 
raries, and such an exchange of epithets as in these 
later days at times distinguishes our deliberative bod- 
ies would then have led to a fusillade that would have 
made a battle-field of City Hall or State Capitol. The 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 289 

invitation to step over to Hoboken and adjust matters 
with a pair of pistols : as, of course, a barbarity, but 
it led to a remarkable politeness and a discriminating 
choice of words in public speech or written document. 
Even then a challenge was liable to be sent on gen- 
eral principles, and it could not be refused. Bernard, 
the actor, in his autobiographical account of a visit 
paid to New York in the early part of the century, 
speaks of a call made upon him at his hotel by Mr. 
Coleman, editor of TJie Evening Post. After an hour's 
pleasant chat, the editor excused himself on the score 
of an engagement, and it was not until the next day 
that Mr. Bernard learned that the engagement in ques- 
tion was an invitation to fight a duel at Hoboken. It 
was a matter of course, the custom of the day ; and 
politicians, journalists, and even men of business (like 
Robert Swartwout, who was a merchant, and was wed- 
ded to Miss Dunscombe at the house of his brother- 
in-law, Philip Hone), were ready to maintain their 
opinions with powder and ball. 

At this time Samuel Swartwout, the youngest of 
the brothers, was in the South with Aaron Burr. De- 
voted to the fortunes of that adventurous pioneer of 
a new empire, he had gone with him to the South- 
west to assist in setting up a new field of rule and 
conquest on the Mexican border. When Burr was 
on trial at Richmond, Samuel Swartwout was there as 
his private secretary and friend, and became the sharer 
of his prison. As ready as his brothers for the trial 
by combat, he sent a challenge to General Wilkinson, 
and when the latter declined to receive it, on the 
ground that he would not hold correspondence with 
traitors and conspirators, the ardent challenger prompt- 
19 



290 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

ly posted him as a coward and poltroon. Released 
and returning to this city, he served in 1812 as ad- 
jutant of the celebrated Irish Greens, and afterwards 
did duty on the staff of General Jackson at the battle 
of New Orleans. It was the friendship which Jack- 
son conceived for stalwart Sam Swartwout that made 
the latter Collector of the Port, and kept him in ofifice 
eight years in spite of the protests of Tammany Hall. 
When it came to the case of his personal friends, 
"Old Hickory" was immovable. 

I never cross the meadows beyond Bergen Hill but 
the memory of the Swartwouts comes back to me. 
They dreamed, seventy years ago, that these meadows 
might be reclaimed and made a vast market -garden 
to supply the metropolis. With them to think was to 
act. They purchased 4200 acres of the salt-marsh in 
181 5. It was subject to overflow by the tides and 
was mostly under water. Business men regarded the 
scheme as visionary and would have nothing to do 
with it. But the brothers were rich men for that 
day, and John Swartwout did not hesitate to embark 
every penny of his $200,000 in the speculation. They 
went sturdily to work, built ten miles of embankment, 
dug 100 miles of ditch, reclaimed 1500 acres of solid 
ground, and announced that they would raise upon 
these resurrected fields all the vegetables that would 
ever be needed in New York. Three years of this 
work absorbed their money and broke up their regu- 
lar business. But Robert secured the appointment 
of Naval Agent, and the brothers went ahead with 
unwavering faith. At the close of another year they 
applied to the city corporation for aid, but it was re- 
fused. Then, still believing that there were " millions 



A TOUR AROUND NFAV YORK 29I 

in it," they mortgaged everything and kept on. As 
a last resort, they sent their maps and plans to Hol- 
land, in the hope that they would interest the Dutch 
devotees of canals, but this proved a failure also. 
The brothers were impoverished, and the swamp — ex- 
cept the district they reclaimed — is still a prey to the 
sea. When in summer the train dashes across the 
miles of swamp land beyond Hoboken, and the long, 
salt grass, jewelled with wild ilowers of brilliant hue, 
sways and tosses to the breath of the wind, it seems 
to me as I look out from the car window as if the 
wild roses and the meadow-grasses were growing over 
the graves of those buried hopes of- seventy years 
ago. Perhaps, though, like all such failures, it is but 
the seed of future success. The pioneer never reaps 
the harvest. 

Another old-time politician whom I remember was 
Churchill C. Cambreling. One of the most distin- 
guished of the commercial representatives of the city 
in his day, he has been forgotten this many a year. 
Courteous, refined, and accomplished, few men of his 
day exerted a more powerful influence here or at 
Washington. Nine times he was elected to Congress, 
where he served on the most important committees, 
and Monroe, Jackson, and Van Buren eagerly sought 
his aid and counsel. President Van Buren appointed 
him Minister to Russia, and this was the close of his po- 
litical career. I have instanced the case of Mr. Cam- 
breling to show how fleeting is political fame. The 
man whom the whole city delighted to honor has 
now no place in the city's memory. His successor in 
Congress, Mike Walsh, has been better remembered, 
and traditions of his political powers are still told 



292 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

around the watch-fires of the clans. It was he who 
said that " Any dead fish can swim with the current, 
but it takes a Hve fish to swim against it," and that 
" It requires more statesmanship to cross Broadway 
at Fulton Street than to be a Representative in Con- 
gress from a rural district." 

Forty years ago I met Thurlow Weed for the first 
time, in the island of Santa Cruz, where he was win- 
tering for his health, and had interested himself in the 
emancipation of the slaves in that island. Outside of 
politics, I knew him well afterwards. On the subject 
of politics he was inscrutable. He counselled with 
no one, but made his own plans and had them exe- 
cuted. Whether his influence was for good or evil is 
not a matter for discussion here. In his peculiar role 
of Warwick the king-maker he has had no successor. 
I found him at his best in his talks about literature. 

When wise King Solomon remarked that there was 
nothing new under the sun, he might have included 
politics, though politics was not much of a business 
in his day. Thrones sometimes went the w^ay of a 
Broadway railroad franchise, and were privately sold 
to the highest bidder, but the sword usually settled 
all disputes. This latter method had the advantage 
of largely reducing the number of political aspirants 
and of occasionally exterminating the entire opposi- 
tion, root and branch, or, speaking politically, primary 
and convention — thus leaving quiet folk a better 
chance of fireside peace and comfort. In our day 
history continually repeats itself in politics as in other 
phases of public life. Prophets have arisen who pro- 
claim the wonderful discovery of a new and original 
panacea for the ills of mankind. They promise to 



I 




TAMMANY HALL, iSii 

abolish poverty, to banish thorns and thistles, and 
make the land bring forth nothing but grapes and 
olives, and to create a millennium through the ballot. 
They feed on ashes. Their pretended patent is but 
the antiquated prescription of dead and buried quacks 
— moth-eaten and ghostly in its flimsiness. Sixty 
years ago, in 1827, Fanny Wright, the famous free- 



294 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

thinker and land-reformer, and William Cobbett, the 
radical writer and member of the British Parliament, 
came to New York and ventilated their peculiar views 
to large audiences that were chiefly composed of arti- 
sans and laborers. Their promise of a restored Eden, 
in which land and wealth should be held in common, 
was so captivating that they were able to organize 
an enthusiastic Labor Party in this city, which was so 
successful that it sent Ely Moore to Congress as its 
standard-bearer. But in two or three years it ceased 
to exist as an organization, having become merged 
into the old Jacksonian Democratic Party, upon whose 
policy it ingrafted in some measure its peculiar politi- 
cal views. A similar fate is likely to befall the pres- 
ent labor movement — or at least that part of it which 
proposes to undertake the job of reforming that por- 
tion of creation which President Zachary Taylor des- 
ignated as "all the world and the rest of mankind." 
What the genius of Fanny Wright and the brain of 
William Cobbett could not compass cannot be accom- 
plished by the words of Powderly and McGlynn, of 
Henry George and Lucy Parsons. 

Horatio Seymour used to say that the City of New 
York was a State by itself, entirely distinct in its in- 
terests and customs from the rural districts of the 
interior. " I have always advised candidates for State 
or Federal ofifices who do not belong in the city," he 
said to me, " to keep away from New York while their 
campaign was in progress — a piece of advice which I 
always followed in my own case." Yet he had a great 
admiration for the metropolis, and the number of his 
friends here was legion. I recall a summer afternoon 
when I sat with him on the porch of his home upon 



A TOUR AROUND NEW VORK 



295 



the slope of the Deerfield Hills, looking up and down 
the lovely panorama of the Mohawk Valley — the 
grandest highway of nations in the world — when he 
gave me a characteristic chapter of his experience at 
the hands of Tammany Hall. " I had opposed Tam- 
many," he said, " in the nomination of a Judge of the 
Court of Appeals, and they had been defeated. The 
leaders left the Convention vowing vengeance. Later 
in the campaign I accepted an invitation to speak in 
Tammany Hall, and though anticipating a disturbance, 
there was nothing else to be done but to go. When 
the night came the hall was crowded. I remarked to 
Captain Rynders that possibly there would be trouble 
when I spoke, but he replied that there was no dan- 



In W 




TAMMANY HAI.L IN LATER TIMES 



296 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

ger, that unity was the rule and harmony must be 
preserved. As I rose to speak there was considerable 
disturbance in the rear of the hall. At the same time 
I noticed a line of men extending from each farther 
corner of the room to a point in the centre. Each 
man held his silk hat in one hand above the heads of 
the crowd, and as the wedge-shaped line gradually fell 
back there was more room and better order. After it 
was over I asked Captain Rynders what was the 
meaning of the movement. It appears that the line 
of men with silk hats held aloft was' a phalanx of se- 
lect shoulder-hitters, who preserved the unities of their 
hats with the left hand and hit out with the right. 
They had forced the malcontents to the rear, then 
closed their lines upon them, pushed them back to the 
door, and threw them down -stairs. It was accom- 
plished so quietly and effectively that the disturbing 
element found itself in the middle of the street before 
it had a chance to make a demonstration. ' No,' said 
Captain Rynders to me, reflectively, ' we never have 
any trouble — unity is the rule and harmony must be 
preserved.' 'But don't you have a feud afterwards?' 
'Bless your heart, no, Governor; those same men 
crept up-stairs afterwards like so many little lambs 
and listened to you quietly to the end. Harmony 
was preserved, you see.' " 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 297 



CHAPTER XXIV 

PUBLIC OPINION OPPOSED TO BANKS — BIRTH AND GROWTH OF THE 
SYSTEM — THE YELLOW-FEVER TERROR — PERSONAL REMINISCENCES 
— ORIGIN OF SOME NEW YORK BANKS — CIRCUMVENTING THE LEG- 
ISLATURE — WILD-CAT BANKING 

Between the first establishment of a banking insti- 
tution in this country and the national banking system 
lies an experience in finance that is as wonderful as 
anything else in our history. In hunting it out, the 
chief miracle seems to be that the land was able to 
achieve even the least prosperity. At the beginning 
of this century there was an almost unanimous oppo- 
sition to banks ; now it seems to be a prevailing 
opinion that the more we have the merrier. 

It was Philadelphia that set New York the example 
of creating a bank of discount and deposit. The 
Bank of North America, originated by Robert Morris, 
Superintendent of Finance for the United States, was 
incorporated by Congress in 1781 and by the State of 
Pennsylvania a few months later in the same year. 
But nothing could be done in New York while the 
British held possession of the city, and it was not un- 
til November 25, 1783, that the English soldiers final- 
ly disembarked, taking with them thousands of Tory 
refugees. Philadelphia had a population of forty 
thousand at that time, and was regarded as the future 
capital of the colonies, since Congress always held its 



298 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

sessions there. New York was but the shadow of 
the flourishing city of 1776. Its patriotic citizens re- 
turned to find its homes dismantled or destroyed by 
fire, its churches turned into riding-schools or hospi- 
tals, and its commerce gone. But the spirit of its 
people was indomitable. Though the population of 
the city numbered but twenty thousand, and the 
business men had been largely impoverished by the 
war, a movement was started at once looking to the 
creation of a bank. Money was scarce, and it was at 
first proposed that subscriptions should be made with 
one-third money and two-thirds mortgages or deeds 
of trust on land in New York and New Jersey. Hap- 
pily wiser counsels prevailed, and at a meeting held in 
the Merchants' Coffee House on February 26, 1784, 
the Bank of New York was organized, with a capital 
stock of $500,000 in gold and silver. Major-general 
Alexander McDougall, a gallant soldier of the Revolu- 
tion, and President of the Society of the Cincinnati, 
was elected President, and William Seton, a shipping 
merchant whose sympathies were with the royal side, 
and who had remained in New York throughout the 
war, was made cashier. In the first list of directors 
are the names of Alexander Hamilton, Comfort Sands, 
Thomas Randall, Nicholas Law, Isaac Roosevelt, and 
others almost equally well known in the early finan- 
cial and commercial history of the city. Alexander 
Hamilton drew up the constitution and gave Mr. 
Seton, who was not familiar with the forms of bank- 
ing business, a letter to the cashier of the bank in 
Philadelphia where he had gone to procure " materials 
and information." 

The bank began business at the old Walton House 




OLD WALTON HOUSE IN 1776 



on St. George's Square, now known as Franklin Square, 
but in 1798 it was removed to the corner of Wall and 
William streets, the same site which it now occupies. 
Wall Street was then largely a street of private resi- 
dences. Alexander Hamilton had his modest house 
upon part of the present site of the Mechanics' Bank, 
and near by lived the Verplancks, Ludlows, Marstons, 
and other families of social prominence. The dry- 
goods and millinery stores were in William Street, 
where the ladies did their shopping. There was con- 
siderable opposition in the Legislature to the incor- 
poration of banking institutions, and the petition 
which the Bank of New York presented in 1789 was 
unheeded, and while the Assembly of 1790 (in which 
my grandfather's grandfather was member from the 
great county of Ontario, which then embraced the 
western half of the State) passed an act of incorpora- 
tion for the bank, it was defeated in the Senate by 
the casting vote of the Chairman. A year later the 



300 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

bank was successful, and under these new auspices it 
took a fresh lease of life, with a capital of $900,000 
and with Washington's Secretary of the Treasury as 
its friend and adviser. But even great men are short- 
sighted, and on January 18, 1791, I find Alexander 
Hamilton writing to Cashier Seton that he has ''learned 
with infinite pain the circumstance of a new bank 
having started up in your city. Its effects cannot but 
be in every way pernicious. These extravagant sal- 
lies of speculation do injury to the Government and 
to the whole system of public credit, by disgusting all 
sober citizens and giving a wild air to everything." 
But the proposed Million Bank, which Hamilton else- 
where designates as a " newly engendered monster," 
failed to obtain a charter, and was never organized for 
business. 

The whole city appears to have subscribed for the 
five-hundred-dollar shares of the Bank of New York 
when they were placed on the market. Among the 
stockholders in 1784 I find the names of Herman Le 
Roy, Thomas Ludlow, Robert Lenox, Peter Keteltas, 
John Delafield, Gulian Verplanck, Anthony S. Bleeck- 
er, Peter Schermerhorn, Richard Varick, Gouverneur 
Kemble, John Alsop, Josiah Ogden Hoffman, Gilbert 
Aspinwall, John Suydam, and Anthony A. Rutgers — 
a brave showing of old colonial blood. The extremes 
of subscriptions were those of Temperance Green, who 
took twenty-five shares, and the Black Friars* Society, 
which was enrolled for a one-half share. The second 
name on the list was that of Alexander Hamilton, a 
subscriber for one share and a half, and the third is 
that of Aaron Burr, who took three shares. It was a 
natural sequence of names in that day; in these later 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 30I 

times it looks familiar and significant. On the same 
roll I find the name of Abraham Bradley, a near rela- 
tive of my ancestral member from Ontario, who was 
appointed Assistant Postmaster-general by President 
Washington, and held the ofBce for forty years. And 
there is one name there of a white-haired soldier of 
the Revolution who used to take me on his knee, and 
tell me of the wild charge upon the Hessians at Tren- 
ton, and the glorious surrender at Yorktown — -Major 
Jonathan Lawrence, So, when I have told my little 
boy — the Benjamin of our quiet household — of the 
carnage I witnessed at Malvern Hill and Spottsyl- 
vania, I can also give him, as I heard it from living 
lips, the story of the long, dark years that stretched 




TONTINE COFFEE-HOUSE 



302 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

between the fight at Lexington and the evacuation of 
New York. 

Notwithstanding the financial success of the Bank 
of New York and its acknowledged convenience to 
the public, there was wide- spread popular prejudice 
against the establishment of more banks. The farm- 
ers were an important and growing element in the 
State, and they were possessed with the idea that the 
money placed in banks was just so much withdrawn 
from circulation in the community. A branch of the 
United States Bank had been established in New 
York City, and these two institutions were judged to 
be sufificient for business purposes for many years to 
come. But as it is the unexpected which always 
happens, so an unforeseen occurrence paved the way 
to the incorporation of other banks. The yellow- 
fever visited New York in 1798, and one of its earliest 
victims was a book-keeper in the Bank of New York. 
Fearing another visitation of the pestilence, the bank 
made arrangements with the branch Bank of the 
United States to purchase two plots of eight city lots 
each, in Greenwich Village, far away from the city 
proper, to which they could remove in case of being 
placed in danger of quarantine. Here two houses 
were erected in the spring of 1799, and here the 
banks were removed in September of that year, giv- 
ing their name, Bank Street, to the little village lane 
that had been nameless before. The last removal 
was made in 1822, when the yellow-fever raged with 
unusual virulence, and the plot, which had been pur- 
chased for $500, was sold in 1843 for $30,000. 

It would be scarcely possible to exaggerate the ter- 
ror which pervaded the city during the prevalence of 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 305 

the yellow-fever. Colonel Tappan, whose home was 
then in Orchard Street, tells me that an iron chain 
was stretched across the streets at the Brick Church, 
which marked the boundaries of the quarantine, and 
he has a vivid recollection of the sudden and ap- 
palling inroads of the pestilence upon the ranks of 
his stalwart young contemporaries. An old New 
Yorker, who was born in Greenwich Village in the 
first year of the century, and who, as I write, in the 
same spot is passing peacefully down to the grave, 
remembers that during one fever summer a hotel of 
rough boards, capable of holding 500 guests, had gone 
up between Saturday and Monday in a field where 
the ripe wheat was waving on Saturday. The city was 
without sewerage. Great gutters, that ran through 
the centre of the streets, collected the refuse instead 
of carrying it off, and left it festering in the sun. Pigs 
roamed at large, and cattle were driven home to the 
stables from the pasture lots near Canal Street. Pes- 
tilence was the natural result of the city's accumulated 
filth, and it was equally natural that a desire for sani- 
tary reform should follow in its turn. In this sanitary 
revolution Aaron Burr saw his financial opportunity, 
and whispered it to some of the leading merchants of 
the city. The result was that a bill was presented to 
the Legislature in 1799 chartering a company with a 
capital of $2,000,000 for the purpose of introducing 
pure water into the City of New York. This was all 
well enough so far, but the true intent of the scheme 
lay in a clause providing that the surplus capital 
might be employed in " moneyed transactions or 
operations not inconsistent with the laws and Con- 
stitution of the State of New York." The scheme 



3o6 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

worked well, owing to Burr's sagacious leadership, and 
the Legislature passed the bill, with real or pretended 
ignorance of the effect of the measure. That efTect 
was speedily seen, for soon after its charter was se- 
cured notice was given that the Manhattan Company 
would begin banking operations in September of that 
year with a capital of $500,000. 

This was the only way to flank a bitter and un- 
reasoning popular prejudice. Legislatures were as 
flexible in that era as now, and the lobby was as po- 
tent if less numerous. Chemical works, ship-building 
yards, and other pretexts were used to charter addi- 
tional banks. The great bank buildings which now 
make Wall Street magnificent are a glory to this city 
and a testimony of what may be accomplished by 
financial genius and integrity. One of these has been 
erected by the Gallatin Bank, which honored itself in 
exchanging its old name of National Bank to one 
which keeps green the memory of the greatest Secre- 
tary of the Treasury of this century. In the sixty 
years of its existence this bank has had but three 
presidents, Albert Gallatin, his son, James Gallatin, 
and the present occupant of the chair, Frederick D. 
Tappan. A portrait of the first president is worth a 
visit to see, so nobly does it typify the great men who 
built up the young republic into stalwart manhood. 

These banks of an older day have had their defeats 
as well as their victories. There lies before me a lit- 
tle newspaper, yellowed by age, that was issued May 
10, 1837, at the crisis of the great panic. The day be- 
fore, the Chemical Bank, the " pet " of the editor, had 
suspended specie payments, and twenty -two others 
had kept it company. The community had lost its 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 307 

head in some respects. The worthy Mayor had 
camped a regiment of infantry in the City Hall Park, 
and by way of a further precaution against outbreak 
he absurdly sent several men into Wall Street, bear- 
ing aloft plaster busts of the immortal Washington. 
The National Theatre advertised to take notes of all 
State banks at par, and to give season tickets in ex- 
change. " By gar," said a Frenchman who read the 
notice; "dat is good. I have forty dollar — ah, ah — 
I shall no lose my moneys now." " Keep cool," is 
the editor's advice. " The banks will resume pay- 
ment ; Martin Van Buren will be turned out of office, 
and all will be well." How splendidly our city banks 
weathered this financial hurricane is now a matter of 
history. 

One of the first newspaper pictures that I remem- 
ber to have seen represented the interior of a wildcat 
bank in Indiana. Leaning across the counter, the 
cashier was handing a $i bill to a small boy with the 
impressive exhortation, " Here, boy, run to the corner 
and get me a dollar's worth of silver change. I ex- 
pect the bank examiner to-day, and we must have 
some silver to show him." Endless was the bother 
in my boyhood days about uncurrent money, coun- 
terfeit detectors, and bills of doubtful value. Each 
State was so jealous of its own currency that even 
the great State of Pennsylvania passed a law placing 
a fine of $5 on any person who attempted to put in 
circulation the bank-bills of another State. I remem- 
ber that once when I was a lad at school in Burling- 
ton, N. J., I went to Philadelphia to have a tooth 
extracted. An exceedingly benevolent-looking gen- 
tleman in clerical black nearly murdered me in ac- 



:508 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



complishing the feat of extracting the molar, and I 
felt that he amply deserved his fee of fifty cents. In 
the confiding innocence of early youth, I handed him 
a $2 bill upon one of the oldest and safest banks in 
the City of New York. The good man looked at it 
sternly, glanced at me sadly, and then remarked : 
" Did you know that there is a fine of $5 for attempt- 
ing to pass New York currency in this State?" " No," 
replied I, with a blush and a shudder. And what said 
the good man ? With a brand-new glow of benevo- 
lence on his serene countenance, he remarked, gener- 
ously and gushingly : " Well, my boy, I will protect 
you. I will keep the bill myself. Good-bye !" Often 
since that time I have been led to apply to the two 
cities a remark which a friend was accustomed to ap- 
ply to Hartford and Providence. " They're a little 
more pious in Philadelphia, but they're a little more 
honest in New York." 




VAN CORTLANDT S SUGAR HOUSE 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 309 



CHAPTER XXV 

PUDDING ROCK — AN ANCIENT SCHOOL- HOUSE — A TEMPERANCE HAM- 
LET GONE WRONG — LANDMARKS AND MEMORIES OF THE NEW 
PARKS — VAN CORTLANDT AND PELHAM BAY — THE UNKNOWN 
LAND OF THE BRONX — RURAL SCENES IN A CITY's BOUNDARIES 

Sweet are the uses of — advertising. So the poet 
did not sing; but this is the theme of the brush as 
the peripatetic artist wields it on rock and cHff, whose 
bare, bold beauty even the mosses and lichens have 
spared. It is bad enough to become interested in a 
newspaper paragraph only to find it a snare to lead 
the unwary on in the direction of a plaster or pill, but 
to settle one's self back in a luxurious palace-car chair 
and prepare for the enjoyment of a delicious bit of 
rocky scenery, and then to find the foreground ruined 
by sprawling displays of the advertiser's art scattered 
over every available surface of smooth stone, implies 
one of the impertinences of humanity which are not 
to be forgiven in this world or in the next. An old 
preceptor of mine used to say, " The boy who would 
injure a shade tree would kill a man," and I am in- 
clined to supplement this axiom by adding that the 
man who would wantonly deface a pretty touch of 
nature's handiwork was originally framed for a pirate. 
The paint-pot of this pernicious buccaneer is an un- 
mitigated evil. 

The fact that the advertising artist had exercised 
his diabolical ingenuity upon Pudding Rock has rec- 



3IO A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

onciled to its departure the people of Morrisania, in 
whose eyes it was an historic landmark. Two months 
ago it stood where the glacier had deposited it, a 
stranger from a distant shore " centuries ago." Now 
it has been shattered into a thousand fragments, and 
it will return again to earth, to pass an existence of 
humble usefulness as the foundation of quiet homes. 
In the days of its glory it stood out in shape not un- 
like a pudding in a bag, and as if gathered in at the 
top, where a cluster of half a dozen cedars rose from 
its centre. Rising twenty-five feet from the ground 
and extending thirty feet in diameter, it was always 
a conspicuous object from the old Boston Post -road. 
Its site was between what will be One Hundred and 
Sixty-fifth and One Hundred and Sixty-sixth streets, 
at the end of Cauldwell Avenue and directly south of 
the handsome and hospitable residence of Mr. Will- 
iam Cauldwell, whose father, in 1848, built the first 
house erected in the new village of Morrisania. Pud- 
ding Rock had its history and traditions. In the rear 
was a natural fireplace, whose use the Indians had 
long ago discovered. Here they came to have their 
corn-feasts, and presumably to discuss Saddle Rock 
oysters and Little »Neck clams, with other seasonable 
delicacies. For it must always be said in favor of the 
Indian women that they were good house-keepers and 
cooks, and the men had excellent appetites. When 
the Huguenot colonists, driven by religious persecu- 
tion from beautiful France, took up their line of march 
along the East River and by the shores of Long Isl- 
and Sound in search of a warm spot where vines would 
grow, and a quiet place where they might sing the 
Lord's songs in a strange land, they camped around 



I 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 3I I 

Pudding Rock and made their headquarters here for 
some months before they finally decided to build their 
New Rochelle. To them it was Hterally the shadow 
of a great rock in a weary land. Afterwards it became 
to the settler and voyager a landmark by which dis- 
tances were measured, and to travellers in the stage- 
coaches on the old Boston Road it was pointed out as 
a natural curiosity. Last of all came the geologist, 
with his little hammer and his big brain, and, after 
tapping in succession the stone and his own head, he 
announced that the rock was a pilgrim and a stranger, 
left stranded on a foreign shore by a huge glacier that 
had swept down from the Polar regions and then crept 
slowly backward to Greenland, leaving the valley of 
the Hudson open to the tread of the mastodon, and 
slowly raising the price of ice as it retired. 

There are traces of a great glacial deposit extending 
from the line of the Harlem River up through Con- 
necticut and beyond ; and Pudding Rock, whose for- 
mation was foreign to the rocky growth of its vicinity, 
was not the least curious of them. Some of these 
deposits took the shape of " rocking- stones," and 
these were a source of superstitious veneration to the 
simple red men of other days, who were wont at 
intervals to gather about them and go through the 
mysteries of a medicine-dance. One of the most re- 
markable of the chain of rocking-stones is found on 
the old Lydig place, near West P'arms. It is an im- 
mense bowlder, so nicely balanced on a rocky drift 
that the pressure of a strong finger will readily move 
it, and yet so firmly set that steam-power would be 
needed to drag it from its moorings. I remember 
that when I saw it first, years ago, the farmer in charge 



312 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

of the place told me that once he had harnessed up 
a dozen yoke of oxen to see if he could draw it away 
from its position, but he found that they could not 
move it, and yet I put forth two fingers and easily 
set it rocking. The structure of the huge stone was 
entirely different from the trap rock on which it 
rested, and it was a stranger amid the geological for- 
mation of Westchester County. It had found a pleas- 
ant abiding-place on the historic old grounds through 
which the Bronx found its way under overhanging 
trees, making a scene of rural loveliness which it 
would be difificult to surpass. The Lydig place was 
once the country residence of the De Lanceys. The 
quaint and picturesque old homestead, built in the 
early part of the last century, was destroyed by fire 
shortly before the outbreaking of the late war ; but 
the flames could not sweep away the ancient garden 
laid out in the fashion of half a century ago, the 
summer-houses and rustic seats, and the gracious 
beauty of the stately trees. Even when the brick 
and stone phalanxes of city blocks begin to crowd 
into the quiet hamlet of West Farms, they will not, 
as I hope and believe, be able to destroy the incom- 
parable beauty of the Bronx River scenery, of which 
the denizen of New York knows all too little. 

As the city sweeps up to the north and east, it is 
blotting out the boundary lines of the score of scat- 
tered hamlets and country cross-roads which once 
dotted that part of Westchester County. North New 
York, Wilton, and Eltona have virtually disappeared, 
Mott Haven has melted into Melrose, and the names 
of streets from the city south of the Harlem have 
crossed that stream and usurped the homely titles of 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 313 

the old country roads of thirty and forty years ago. 
The story of Morrisania is the history of that active 
section of the city, once a portion of the " neutral ter- 
ritory," but now bristling with business at every street 
corner. It was in 1848 that the village of Morrisania 
was laid out. The plot was destined to be a suburban 
Eden. Every man was to have his acre of ground, 
and only eligible citizens were to be permitted to 
plant their domestic standards here. The village was 
to be strictly a temperance settlement, and neither 
ale nor strong drink was to be sold within its limits. 
Alas for the mutability of human devices ! To-day it 
looks as if nothing but fluids were sold in Morrisania, 
and great brew"eries, which cease not to puff and labor 
night and day, dot its hill-sides, and move its reminis- 
cent old settlers to wrath. Standing in their shadow, 
it is difficult to realize that forty years ago only fields 
of wheat and corn and stretches of forest trees were 
in sight, and that the only other signs of civilization 
within the horizon were a little old school-house and 
a winding stage road. Yet in 1848 Mn Andrew Cauld- 
well built the first house in the village plot, and in the 
next year the colonists opened and dedicated a little 
union church, in which the inhabitants of this charm- 
ing new paradise were to worship forever in harmony ; 
and when the anniversary day of the settlement came 
around a brass band and an oration made a prodigious 
celebration of the event, which was rounded up by a 
dance at Horace Ward's old tavern at the base of Buena 
Ridge. The men and women who danced at the an- 
cient hostlery that night are by no means old to-day, 
but it makes them feel like relics of the past when they 
stand in the streets of Morrisania and look about them. 



314 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

Only one landmark of the past remains, now that 
Pudding Rock is gone. A little to the east of the old 
Boston Post -road, and just north of One Hundred 
and Fifty -sixth Street, stands a decrepit wooden 
building a story and a half in height, with a long, 
steep roof, and a porch that runs the entire length of 
its front. The mosses of a century seem to have gath- 
ered on the long slope of the roof, and it appears in 
every part to be slowly withering to decay, like a 
dried leaf on a November oak. Near by, at one time, 
Mill Creek prattled along towards the East River, 
over a pebbly bed and under a double line of willows, 
but a sewer has swallowed up the pretty brook, and 
the new grade of adjacent streets threatens the exist- 
ence of the school-house. It was beneath this roof 
that the gentry of the neighborhood, including the 
various branches of the Morris family, whose ancient 
homesteads still linger in its neighborhood, received 
their early education. Most of the little ones, who, 
in the early part of the century, crept and danced 
along by country paths to the presence of the peda- 
gogue who flourished a good birchen rod here, have 
grown old and tottered back to Mother Earth's em- 
brace, but the frail little clap-boarded temple of learn- 
ing has survived them, and still shelters life and love 
under its mosses. It was a desolate sort of blot on a 
new and dressy city landscape when I last saw it in 
the chill light of a November sun on a Sunday after- 
noon, but its desolation was far more eloquent than 
the sermon of a famous preacher which I heard that 
day. 

Did I not say something about the beaut}^ of that 
portion of Westchester which was annexed to this 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 315 

city a few years ago ? I have frequently advised trav- 
ellers who were wearied alike of Mont Blanc and the 
Yosemite Valley to betake themselves to a carriage 
and explore the City of New York, not hastily and su- 
perficially, but with slow delight, and with the pains- 
taking care that marks the botanist. In the ancient 
era of Peter the Headstrong, it was the talk and prep- 
aration of an entire winter to take a trip from the 
Bowling Green to the distant plantations of Harlem 
Village, or to voyage by schooner to Communipaw or 
through the horrible whirlpools of Hell Gate. Per- 
haps it might require as much determination to start 
on an expedition to the way-side settlement known as 
" Moshulu," which snuggles down in a convenient val- 
ley half a mile from Fordham ; to the sleepy old farm- 
ing hamlet of Bronx, over whose cluster of rustic hab- 
itations an ancient windmill, long disused and ghostly 
in appearance, still broods ; or the little village on a 
knoll which is now known as Belmont, but once drew 
its forgotten designation from the homestead of Colo- 
nel Tompkins, the commander of the famous Tomp- 
kins Blues of lang syne. There is scarcely a thing 
about these places to indicate that they are a part of 
a great city, and, indeed, I am told that there are old 
people living in sight of the Bronx River, and within 
the corporate limits of the metropolis, who have never 
seen the City Hall. The horse-cars have found their 
way to " the village " of West Farms, as its older in- 
habitants love to call it, but the railway is still the 
only modern touch to the antiquated surroundings. 
The houses are old-fashioned, and have a look as if 
they would prove obstinately impenetrable to change. 
One of the most venerable of the buildings which ap- 



3l6 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

parently date back to the last century is a two-storied 
frame structure, with gambrel roof and a long porch 
in front, which is said to have been a headquarters for 
Washington and his staff in the early part of the Rev- 
olutionary War. Whether this were true or not, this 
sleepy old village was the scene of one of the most 
daring exploits of Aaron Burr, who, at two o'clock in 
the morning of a sharp winter day, attacked a block- 
house erected, on the present site of the principal ho- 
tel, by Gen. Oliver de Lancey, and by the free use of 
hand-grenades and scaling-ladders persuaded the as- 
tonished garrison to surrender without firing a shot. 
At the old De Lancey mansion, too, the British offi- 
cers were freely entertained, and this hospitality to a 
foreign foe was avenged by the burning of the coun- 
try-seat of the De Lanceys in Bloomingdale during 
the prevalence of hostilities. These events belong to 
the long ago in the history of this land, but, standing 
in the rustic streets of West Farms, in sight of gables 
and shingles and mosses, one naturally reverts to the 
days when the hand of every man was against his 
neighbor in Westchester County. But athwart this 
blood-red landscape of the " neutral ground " there is 
also a glint of love and wooing, as when impetuous 
Aaron Burr was wafted by muffled oars across the 
Hudson in the darkness of the night, and dashed 
across country and through the pickets of the enemy 
to the home of the dainty widow whose heart his 
daring won. Even into these somnolent haunts, whose 
natural beauties have inspired in olden time the pens 
of Halleck and Drake, the brush of the advertising 
artist has penetrated and left a trail of disfigurement. 
Many historic landmarks and legends will belong 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 317 

to the nearly four thousand acres which constitute the 
new parks of the metropoHs. Beyond, but in sight 
of, Kingsbridge stands a commanding eminence known 
as Vault Hill, where was the ancient burial-ground 
of the Van Cort 

landts, and here, in M. ^ ^ m, 

1776, Augustus <0^^^^:_2Z.....M^^ 
Van Cortlandt, ■ ^^^^ffiijj fi-'lif ^^^ 
who held the office >i^^^^'i£^ £'^i3I €||t '^' 



of Clerk of Nevv^ -.^a^-, ■•r.^>'^i^i»'^iJz^-j£^:jZi^»^Simmi.^mi*-~ r 
York, concealed -^^m^&^m^^^~J-'~" : Jr'^ 

the public records -.1 ^^^*" " ■;• ~ •'' ' 

of the city. Five 

years later Wash- van cortlandt manor-house 

ington lighted ex- 
tensive camp-fires on this hill and its slopes, and suc- 
cessfully deceived the British enemy encamped on the 
southern side of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, while the 
great body of his army was on the march to join La- 
fayette at Yorktown. 

At the southern extremity of the lake which bears 
the famil}^ name of the Van Cortlandts, an ancient 
mill, which has ground corn for both the friends and 
foes of American independence, nestles among over- 
hanging chestnuts and elms, and looks out upon a 
miniature cascade and rapids, which babble to the 
great trees on the banks the same song they sang 
more than a century ago. To the north-east is an 
opening in the woods, where the dust of eighteen of 
the forty Stockbridge Indians who fell beneath British 
bullets while fighting on the side of the Colonists lie 
in one grave, still unmarked by a stone. All through 
this region the ploughshare and the spade of the 



3l8 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

builder turn up cannon-balls, rusty fragments of bay- 
onets, and other reminders of the deadly struggle 
which raged here for eight long years. From Kings- 
bridge to White Plains and from the Hudson to the 
Sound was one great battle-field, and the most illus- 
trious leaders of both armies have ridden along these 
country roads in the times that tried the faith of our 
fathers. 

The scenery on the banks of the Bronx River, which 
is the main feature of the new Bronx Park, has long 
been the admiration of our painters and poets, and the 
only circumstance which has closed the eyes of New 
Yorkers to its wealth of natural beauty is the fact that 
its loveliness lay right at their doors. These rocky 
ravines, wooded slopes, glades tangled with wild vines, 
and placid pools, should have been hidden in the 
Rocky Mountains or in the Adirondack region, in order 
to have been appreciated by those who think that a 
long journey is necessary in order to discover the beau- 
tiful in nature. There hangs upon the walls of my 
library a painting which always exacts an inquiry as 
to the spot it has reproduced, and rarely does the in- 
quirer fail to express his surprise that such a scene of 
picturesque loveliness actually exists within the cor- 
porate bounds of New York. 

There is less of historic interest attached to this im- 
mediate locality than to other portions of the neigh- 
borhood. The reason for this is akin to the tragedy 
of the " Three Wise Men of Gotham," who Avent to 
sea in a bowl, of whom leijends make this record : 



"If the bowl had been stronger 
My story had been longer." 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



319 



The quiet waters of the Bronx would have been the 
scene of a sanguinary naval battle had they been a 
little deeper. For, during the British occupancy of 
New York, Sir William Howe ordered the commander 
of the British fleet to sail up the Bronx with his fleet 
and guns, and annihilate certain Yankee gunboats of 
light draught that were making things unpleasantly 
warm for the Tory inhabitants thereabouts. After a 




DISTANT VIEW OF THE PALISADES FROM VAN CORTLANDT PARK 



brief, inglorious cruise to the mouth of the little river, 
the disgusted British admiral was compelled by the 
shallowness of the water to retire as he came, without 
having harvested his expected laurels. But there still 
stands, solitary and alone, towering to the height of 1 50 
feet, a magnificent evergreen known as the De Lancey 
Pine, to recall the time when stout old Oliver De Lan- 
cey led his regiment of loyalists out to battle for the 



320 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

rights of king and crown. Peace to the ashes of 
those brave men ! The same fideHty to existing au- 
thority which made them defenders of the rights of 
royalty impelled their descendants nearly a century 
later to take up arms in support of the Union as it 
Avas. 

A novelty in the way of a free sea-side resort for the 
weary multitudes of a great city is Pelham Bay, with 
a coast-line nine miles in extent, green uplands, pictu- 
resque inlets, rolling meadows, and ever-changing pan- 
orama of marine life on the Sound. Out in front lies 
City Island, on which the first proprietor hoped to 
build a great commercial city. The original lord of 
the manor, Thomas Pell, purchased 10,000 acres here- 
abouts in 1654 for a few trinkets from the Siwanoy 
Indians, who were a branch of the Mohicans. The 
red men were blotted out a century ago, and the bur- 
ial mounds of the last of their sachems, Nimhan and 
Annhook, are still to be found on the Rapelyea estate, 
close to the water. They gave their name to the 
great rock Miskow, on Hunter's Island (a spot of rare 
attractiveness within the Park boundaries), and, re- 
garding it with special veneration as a gift of Manito 
to his children, held annual feasts under its shadow. 
Pelham Neck, in another part of the Park, was the 
scene of a spirited battle between 4000 British troops 
under Lord Howe and 800 of the American militia 
under Colonel Glover. The latter laid an ambuscade 
for the redcoats, and, with a loss of only twelve men, 
killed or wounded looo of the enemy. A generation 
later, in 18 14, two British men-of-war bombarded the 
Neck, and the Americans returned the compliment 
from their batteries. It was the last time that the 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 321 

thunder of British guns was heard within the precincts 
of New York. 

Most interesting to me of all the romance that Hn- 
gers about the spot, whose very atmosphere is tradi- 
tional, is the story of Anne Hutchinson's adventurous 
life and tragic death. Puritan intolerance had driven 
her from New England, and the heroic woman made 
her home in the wilderness that then fronted on Pel- 
ham Bay. But she was not to end her troubled days 
in peace. An Indian outbreak came, and she fell a 
victim to the tomahawk of the savages whom she had 
always befriended, finding toleration only in the grave. 
The brave, stately woman left the baptism of her 
name to Hutchinson River, which forms the western 
boundary of the Park, and its Indian designation, Ac- 
queanoncke, has been obliterated from modern rec- 
ords. When Boston heard of her death, it gave de- 
vout thanks in the churches, because, in its judgment, 
God had made " a heavy example " of " a woful wom- 
an," but we can afford to keep her memory green. 
The life of brave Mistress Anne Hutchinson was pure 
if not gentle, and she was a pioneer of that sweet gos- 
pel of tolerance which has ever been a marked feature 
of the citv of the Knickerbockers. 



322 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



CHAPTER XXVI 

MANHATTAN ISLAND — SOME ANCIENT HOMESTEADS — WORK OF THE 
woodman's axe — A MYSTERY OF DRESS AND ARCHITECTURE — 
BLOCK-HOUSES AND EARTHWORKS — A SACRED GROVE 

In a foot-note to TJie Spy, Fenimore Cooper writes: 
" Every Manhattanese knows the difference between 
'Manhattan Island' and 'the Island of Manhattan.' 
The first is applied to a small district in the vicinity 
of Corlaer's Hook, while the last embraces the whole 
island ; or the city and county of New York, as it is 
termed in the laws.'' The Manhattanese of sixty 
years ago were well acquainted with the distinction 
between the titles, but to most New Yorkers of to- 
day the words convey no shade of difference. Indeed, 
I had wrongly written " Manhattan Island " on a re- 
cent occasion, when the keen eye of my editorial critic 
detected the lapse of memory, and I was admonished 
of the outbreak of wrath that might be expected from 
the shade of the painstaking master of fiction who in 
life liked no name so well as that which his personal 
friends frequently bestowed upon him, " The Path- 
finder." 

" Manhattan Island " was the name given to a high 
knoll of ground on the East River, above the foot of 
Rivington Street, containing about an acre of land, 
surrounded by creeks and salt-marsh, and at high tide 
partly covered with sea-water. Lewis Street ran about 




PETERSFIELD, THE RESIDENCE OF PETRUS STUYVESANT 



through the centre of it. Here were located the ship- 
yards of Henry Eckford and other great marine archi- 
tects of his day — when American enterprise, American 
mechanics, and American patriotism were bent on dis- 
placing the colors of other countries in the world's 
commercial arena with the American flag. Just north 
of Manhattan Island a natural creek ran up through 
the centre of the present Tompkins Square to the 
vicinity of First Avenue. The mouth of the creek 
lay between Manhattan Island and Burnt Mill Point, 
or " Branda Munah Point," as the septuagenarians of 
to-day used to call it when they were boys. One of 
these late leaves of Time's autumn tells me that the 
Point used to be a great swimming and fishing place, 
and in the hot summer days a perpetual temptation 
to play truant. As he fiirst remembers the island, 
several creeks were crossed on small wooden bridges 



324 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

to reach it, and the bridges were attainable only after 
a decidedly moist tramp through soggy meadows and 
salt-marshes. 

The story of the old houses on the Island of Man- 
hattan (few now, and growing farther between with 
each passing decade) can only be written by piece- 
meal. Families have disappeared, and their house- 
hold traditions with them. Their lands have passed 
into the hands of strangers and speculators. Only 
dim legends or dusty legal conveyances remain to 
connect them with the past. In one case I have 
found it impossible to tell with certainty which of 
two adjacent homesteads that were of eminent repute 
one hundred years ago rightly represents the family 
which was known to have made it a centre of brilliant 
hospitality. 

The world of to-day seems to have forgotten en- 
tirely a baronial mansion and estate that was once a 
feature in the rugged landscape above Harlem Plains 
and along the wooded heights that overlooked the 
river. About three-quarters of a century ago Archi- 
bald Watts erected at the eastern foot of Laurel Hill, 
on what is now the line of One Hundred and Forty- 
second Street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, a 
massive stone mansion surmounted by a cupola. It 
was almost hidden by hill and woods from the Bloom- 
ingdale and Kingsbridge roads, and wholly shut out 
from the sight of travellers on Harlem Lane. The 
only exit was to Eighth Avenue, then a country road, 
Mr. Watts laid out an avenue fifty feet wide diagonal- 
ly from the vicinity of One Hundred and Thirty-fifth 
Street to One Hundred and Thirty- ninth Street at 
Seventh Avenue, and at its sides set out a double row 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 325 

of trees which have had a stately and inviting appear- 
ance for the last forty years, for their foliage was so 
thick that the noonday sun could not penetrate it. It 
was a veritable grove of Arcadia, bespeaking in the 
dog-days the slumber of Sybaris under its shade. For 
many years this sylvan retreat has been the resort of 
those who loved a tranquil walk. 

At either end of the road stood, until a year or two 
ago, two iron gates of English ducal pattern, such as 
I have never seen elsewhere on the Island of Man- 
hattan, that lent to the surroundings the air of an 
old-country park, and brought to mind past pilgrim- 
ages across the sea.* The old stone mansion is still 
standing, a swell as a spacious frame-house, erected 
by Mr. Watts for his son about half a century ago, 
and which, as it stands on higher ground, has always 
been observable from the west. But the old houses 
have begun to put on something of a skeleton air. 
Their luxuriant crowns of foliage have been shorn and 
thinned by the steel of the woodsman, and they seem 
to be rapidly growing to the age of those who have 
outlived their strength, and are waiting for the crum- 
bling touch of the destroyer. Within the last few days 
the axe has levelled nearly all those ancient sons of 

* This leafy lane, a pleasant sight from the cars of the Manhattan 
Railway, remained almost unspoiled until 1890, since which time it has 
been obliterated, chiefly by the great blocks of houses with cross-alleys 
extending from Seventh to Eighth avenue. Into the foundations of 
these houses have been built the stones of the walls bounding the old 
Watts Lane. In iSgi, One Hundred and Forty-first, One Hundred 
and Forty- second, and One Hundred and Forty- third streets were 
"filled in," ten feet deep, across the meadows of the Watts farm, the 
former shearing away the porch of the "massive stone mansion," and 
the whole invasion destroying almost entirely the retirement and privacy 
of the place. — L. 



326 A TOUR AROUND NEW VORK 

the forest that kept guard around the old homestead, 
and the glare of the September sun now lights up a 
scene of dusty desolation where they for so long time 
had stood in their glory. I am not going to preach 
the funeral sermon over these fallen giants. It is 
better to tighten up my shoestrings, grasp my cane 
a little more firmly, pucker my lips into the ghost of 
a whistle, and trudge over the old Macomb's Dam 
bridge or the more ancient Kingsbridge planks, to 
seek shade and retirement in the woods that overlook 
Mosholu Creek, or line the historic banks of the Bronx. 
Our Dutch ancestors patterned their houses largely 
after the fashion of their clothes, in a day when out- 
ward attire was as distinct an indication that they wor- 
shipped according to the rites of the Reformed Church 
of Holland as the Quaker's stiff garments bespoke the 
disciple of George Fox, and the severe and sombre 
dress of the New England Puritan marked the disciple 
of Cotton Mather. The home of Dirck Van Amster- 
dam looked like himself — short of stature, ample of 
girth, broad and deep of pocket, and unpretentious in 
his homely attire, and as he sat out on his stoop 
in the summer evening, drawing a cloud of comfort 
from his long pipe, his leathern breeches, huge brown 
waistcoat, and capacious shoes corresponded accu- 
rately with his comfortable home. With the Eng- 
lish conquest there came an invasion of more cere- 
monious dress and statelier dwellings. Powdered wigs 
and cocked hats, velvet coats and breeches, silk stock- 
ings and massive canes marked the gentleman of the 
period, and he dwelt in a massive residence of brick 
or stone, such as within the memory of those still 
living were the city homes of the Waltons, De Pey- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



327 



sters, and other colonial families. In my youth the 
fashion of homes was one of quiet, unpretending dig- 
nity, without display — such homes as one still finds 
on the north side of Washington Square and facing 
it, which for elegance of comfort cannot be surpassed ; 
or, at least, I think so. Recalling the civic dress 
of the period, I can see that the fashioning of house 
and attire was on the same plan of easy, dignified en- 
joyment. It was a decorous entity in red brick, with 
a mere shirt -frill of white marble stoop. As to the 
present day it is difficult to philosophize. As I am 
whirled up -town on an elevated road past the old 
houses on the Bloomingdale Road in which I " went 
to the country " for weeks at a time in my boyhood, 











CLAREMONT 



I behold a collection of symptoms that I find it im- 
possible to diagnose. 

There was certainly a dignity about the masculine 
dress of half a century or more ago which seems 



k 



328 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

to have been lost or forgotten. At that time a man's 
occupation could be told by "the cut of his jib," and 
professional characteristics were very noticeable. The 
clergyman wore a dress-coat of black, and folded a vol- 
uminous white handkerchief many times around his 
neck. In society one could not distinguish any eccle- 
siastical difference of dress between Dr. Berrian, the rec- 
tor of Trinity Church, and Dr. Gardiner Spring, pastor 
of the Brick Church at Beekman Street and the Park, or 
between churchly Dr. Wainwright and his Calvinist an- 
tagonist who tilted at him with a sharp pen. Dr. Potts. 
The successful lawyer was wont to dress after the style 
of Daniel Webster, in blue coat with brass buttons, 
nankeen waistcoat and trousers, and ample shirt-frill. 
It was the portentous air of the physician that mainly 
distinguished him, for his clothes were plain, invariably 
black, and the older members of the fraternity clung 
to the gold-headed cane as if there were something of 
magic in it. The sober dress of the banker, the mer- 
chant, and the man of money was always the perfec- 
tion of quiet taste, whether it were brown, blue, or 
black, and there was a quiet dignity about these men 
of business, whether in the counting-room or at home, 
that always challenged my admiration. One fashion 
all men had in common. None wore a mustache 
only. Shaven faces were the rule and a beard the ex- 
ception ; but the mustache was held to be the mark 
of the gambler or adventurer from abroad. I think it 
was in 1853 that Bishop Chase of New Hampshire 
came to New York to ordain the graduating class of 
the General Theological Seminary, and he positively 
refused to lay his consecrated hands upon one of its 
members, the Rev. John Frederick Schroeder, Jr., until 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 329 

he had shaved his upper Hp. The young man pro- 
tested that a razor had never touched his face, and 
that he had thus intended to keep the unspoken vow 
of a Nazarene. His protest was in vain ; the mus- 
tache had to go. So in later years, when the mustache 
was tolerated here, a young business man from this 
city who went to Milwaukee to be cashier in a bank 
was compelled to resort to the razor to satisfy preju- 
dice. It was a day when no gentleman wore other 
than a " beaver " hat ; when soft and round hats were 
alike unknown, and the cap was the next and final 
step in the descent ; when fob ribbons and seals, and 
perhaps a solitary seal ring, were the rule for jewelry, 
when striped stockings were unknown, because the 
boot covered the socks that the hands of wife or 
mother had knitted. 

Thinking of this similitude between the man and 
his home, I find fresh cause of regret that the houses 
built in this city by the men of other days are so rap- 
idly going to destruction. Only yesterday I passed the 
country home of Alexander Hamilton at One Hun- 
dred and Forty -third Street and Tenth Avenue, 
"The Grange." The estate was purchased some time 
ago and divided into villa lots, with the intention 
of making the homestead one of the " desirable resi- 
dences for gentlemen of means," as advertised. But 
the demand for villas was not great, and the land was 
valuable, and already the home of Hamilton is en- 
closed on two sides by great ramparts of red -brick 
blocks. An abomination of desolation ranges around 
the house which but a year ago presented a scene of 
rural beauty, and a pile of new boards is laid up against 
the fence that surrounds the group of thirteen trees 



330 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

planted by the hand of the great New Yorker who 
was the intimate friend as well as comrade in the field 
of George Washington, and the first Secretary of the 
Treasury. I think that if my father's hand had 
planted those trees, I would stand under the shadow 
of Washington's statue on Wall Street, and hold out 
my hat for pennies until the thirteen were redeemed 
and saved from the iconoclast, or the hat was worn 
out.* I remember what a fuss was made when the 
boyish Prince of Wales planted a tree in Central 
Park. A scrubby little Dutchman of an oak it is, and 
it exists but in a sickly manner, yet a thousand visit- 
ors ask for its whereabouts where one pilgrim to our 
local shrines inquires as to the fate of Alexander 
Hamilton's trees, and fair damsels have begged the 
powers that be for a leaf or an acorn from the prince's 
oak, and have offered gold in exchange for a twig 
from its branches. The spreading elm under which 
Washington sat upon his horse on "the Common " in 
front of our present City Hall, and listened to the 
reading of the Declaration of Independence to his 
troops at sunset of July 9, 1776, has disappeared, and 
the old pear-tree of Peter Stuyvesant, which stood 

* " The Grange" has been removed a short distance, to the east 
side of Convent Avenue, where its preservation seems assured, since it 
is now the property of St. Luke's parish and in use as a rectory. By 
its side the handsome new Church of St. Luke's is going up (1892) on 
the corner of One Hundred and Forty-first Street. The Hamilton trees 
still remain, across the avenue, near One Hundred and Forty -third 
Street. They are strongly fenced in from casual injury. At a recent 
sale Mr. O. B. Potter bought the ground upon which the trees stand, 
avowedly to prevent their destruction. Some correspondence thereupon 
ensuing in the Times newspaper cast a doubt upon the belief that they 
were planted by Hamilton, but the weight of evidence seems to support 
the statement of the text. 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



331 



at Third Avenue and Thirteenth Street, a patriarch 
whose years numbered ten score, has gone the way of 
all good fruit-trees, but the grove that Alexander Ham- 
ilton planted to commemorate these United States 
yet stands in its strength. What shall we do with it ? 
I like to make a patriotic pilgrimage on all of our 
public holidays, and I have a companion who is al- 
ways ready to join me — my little son, who, fifty years 
hence, I hope, will take up these chronicles again, and 




HOUSE OF NICHOLAS WILLIAM STUYVESANT 



write the story of the city as he sees it to-day. Re- 
cently we laid out our tour to the defences that 
guarded Manhattanville in the two wars with Great 



332 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



Britain, in which the spades of the old Continentals 
were supplemented by British sappers and miners, 
and the men of 1812 came in after-years to complete 
the line of protection for the growing city. We stood 
within the crumbling stone walls of Block- house No. 
3, as it was known in the last war with Great Britain, 
on One Hundred and Twenty-third Street, between 
Ninth and Tenth avenues, and looked eastward to the 
busy city that covers the rough plain of a generation 



^■*^'' 




BLOCK-HOUSE OVERLOOKINCi HARLEM RIVER, i860 



ago. At our feet a street had been cut through forty 
feet of solid rock, and broad avenues and boulevards 
stretched across the erstwhile village of Manhattan- 
ville and up the steep and wooded heights beyond. 
The walls of the block -house have crumbled at the 
sides, but the ruins are picturesque, and it ought to 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 333 

be that the landscape-gardener who is to "improve" 
Morningside Park (within whose extreme upper boun- 
dary these ruins He) will suffer them to remain un- 
touched.* 

But more interesting than these mossy walls are the 
earthworks that lie beyond, and that were part of the 
line of defences w^hich in 1812 stretched diagonally 
across the island from Turtle Bay to Harlem Cove. 
In the hot sun we clambered up a steep ascent of 
rocks abutting on One Hundred and Twenty-fifth 
Street, between Tenth Avenue and the Boulevard, and 
reached the remains of an earthwork, whose ram- 
parts were breast-high twenty-five years ago, but are 
now not higher than the knee. A little to the west 
and south is a second redoubt, on another eminence, 
whose lines are more distinct. f These earthworks 
were originally thrown up by General Washington's 
troops during the war of the Revolution, and under 

* It was not so much crumbling as depredation that reduced these 
walls. The neighbors found them an easy quarry of ready-cut stone. 
This has been stopped since the Park lines have been thrown around the 
old block-house, which is now under careful guardianship of the Park 
Commissioners. — L. 

f These lines are most distinct on the north face ; the best point of 
view is from the east side of the Boulevard at One Hundred and 
Twenty-fourth Street and beyond. The visitor to the site of this forti- 
fication, ascending the bank at the north-east corner of One Hundred 
and Twenty-second Street and the Boulevard, will observe many signs 
of outlying works ; a shallow trench is all that remains of the old cov- 
ered way into the redoubt. Between this and the redoubt intervenes 
the chasm caused by the costly and unnecessary extension of One Hun- 
dred and Twenty-third Street through the high, rocky ledge. Just south 
of Fort Laight the still more costly extension of One Hundred and 
Twenty-fourth Street cuts the ridge. Happily these street-openings 
(artificial canons) destroy neither of the main earthworks. — L. 



334 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 




cover of their guns the troops swept down 
from Harlem Cove and drove the EngHsh 
vanguard, with great loss, from Harlem Plains 
and within their upper lines of fortification. 
The first of rhese works Avas known during 
the War of 1812 as Fort Laight, and was re- 
built and occupied by our city militia. In a 
few years, no doubt, they will be swept away, 
for the land is private property and is beau- 
tiful for situation. A soldier who had fought 
in Hancock's brigade, and whose modest lit- 
tle home is just in the rear, told me the story 
of the grassy mounds, and we exchanged the 
greetings of comrades-in-arms, while Master 
Felix Oldboy, Jr., who in his school uniform 
of cadet gray looked the most soldierly of 
the trio, listened with widely- opened eyes, 
and then sought the shade of a rock to 
sketch the redoubt. The place and its sur- 
roundings were well worth the work of the 
pencil. 

Our pilgrimage ended at Fort George. 
The remains of this extensive fortification 
stand on high ground west of the Harlem 
River, at the end of Tenth Avenue, and ex- 
tend from about One Hundred and Ninety- 
second Street to One Hundred and Ninety- 
sixth Street. The soldiers 
of Washington first discov- 
ered the strategic import- 
ance of the place and occu- 
pied it with breastworks, 
FLAG-STAFF, FORT WASHINGTON but thc British commandef 





A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 335 

erected an extensive and strong fortification here and 
named it Fort George, in honor of the heir of Eng- 
land's crown. Its green ramparts 

are still sharply defined, and afford 
a broad walk on their tops, and 
the outlying redoubts can be 
traced very distinctly. The spot 
was full of holiday pilgrims when 
we reached it, but whether they 

, , , PLAN OF FORT WASH- 

knew the story or only went ington 

there for recreation I could not 

tell. It is very safe to say that no other such view, 
and none equal to it in beauty, can be found on the 
Island of Manhattan. To the extreme west the Pal- 
isades lifted their wooded heads, and between the 
green heights of Inwood and Fort Washington the 
Hudson lay glittering in the afternoon sun. In front 
lay the long stretch of low ground through which the 
Kingsbridge Road winds its rustic w^ay. Spuyten Duy- 
vil Creek and Harlem River, with the uplands be- 
yond, formed the north and east of the landscape, and 
the eye could catch a glimpse of the High Bridge. I 
stood on the ramparts that Washington had built 
and Howe had finished, and worshipped with my eye 
these beauties of the city of my love. As the little 
lad who had been sketching at the foot of the glacis 
ran forward, I wondered what the landscape would 
look like when he comes to write another " Tour " 
fifty years hence. He will show his sketches to his 
grandchildren, and speak of his pilgrimage to Fort 
George on a sunshiny afternoon in a September of 
long ago. And I ? Well, I shall then be telling my 
grandmother all about it, too. 



336 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



CHAPTER XXVII 

AN UNEXPLORED REGION — TRACES OF COWBOYS AND HESSIANS — 
LORDS OF THE MANOR — THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY — OLD HOMES 
AND HAUNTS 

One Sunday I was whirled in the railway cars along 
the banks of Spuyten Duyvil Creek to the vicinity of 
the spot where Anthony the Trumpeter had come to 
grief. It was an extra day in the " Tour," for, with 
the advent of a red tinge to the maple leaves, and the 
purpling of the oak tops, and with the opening of the 
reign of golden-rod and gentian and aster, there had 
come an irresistible desire to explore the terra incog- 
nita of New York, the land lying north of Kingsbridge, 
known little to the denizens of this big city, except- 
ing real estate speculators and antiquaries. It is a 
land of stately old homes and luxurious modern resi- 
dences ; of the forest primeval and the landscape-gar- 
dener's effects; of modern avenues and ancient creeks 
and swamps ; of aesthetic interiors and of old-fashioned 
window-seats, in which Continental soldier and Hes- 
sian hireling alternately lounged ; of lake and creek, 
and highland and meadow ; of mounted policemen 
and letter-boxes and steam fire-engines ; of fields and 
hills that have not changed their contour since Peter 
Stuyvesant's solid men-at-arms marched over them, 
and King George allotted their fertile acres to his 
liege subjects. It is a land, too, that lies within the 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



537 



city limits, and I, Felix Oldboy, wearied of beholding 
only that which modern hands had improved out of 
all recollection, yearned for a leisure Sunday under 
oaks and chestnuts in city woods, which should recall 
the days of fishing in " Sunfish Pond " on Beekman 
Hill, and of gathering autumn leaves on the Bloom- 
ingdale Road, that used to stretch from Union Square 
to Kingsbridge in an unbroken panorama of rural 
loveliness. 

There is nothing more beautiful in the way of land- 
scape than that which greets the eye where Spuyten 




CONFLUENCE OK SPUYTEN DUYVIL CREEK AND THE HUDSON 



338 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

Duyvil Creek joins its waters to the Hudson — the 
lake-Hke rivers overlooked by wooded heights on ei- 
ther side, while beyond the Palisades rise abruptly in 
their grandeur, and distant hills to the east complete 
a picture worthy of the pencil of Claude. At Kings- 
bridge, too, there is much pastoral loveliness. The 
silver thread of Tibbett's Brook (Mosholu, in the Ind- 
ian tongue) wanders up through the vale of Yonkers, 
with frowning ridges on one side, and on the other 
meadows and orchards, over which hills crowned with 
the green of ancient forest trees stand sentinel. One 
can walk in almost any direction and soon be able to 
fancy himself living in the times of long ago, or any- 
where else save within the municipal boundaries of 
the chief city of the New World. It is fortunate for 
future generations that much of this landscape loveli- 
ness is to be preserved in the new Van Cortlandt Park, 
which will be about two miles in length and one mile 
broad. The land affords eveiy variety of landscape, 
and its natural features render it a far more desirable 
acquisition than Central Park. Originally part of the 
great Phillipse fief, it passed into the hands of the Van 
Cortlandts in 1699, when the head of that house mar- 
ried Eva Phillipse, daughter of the patroon. Time 
has brought few changes to these lands since the days 
of the Revolution. 

It is to be hoped that the city authorities will pre- 
serve from destruction the old Van Cortlandt man- 
sion-house. It is a large edifice of stone, unpreten- 
tious in its way, and yet possessing a stateliness of its 
own that grows upon the visitor. Erected in 1748 — 
the date is on its front — it preserves within and with- 
out many of the peculiarities of the last century. One 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 339 

of the rooms in especial is unchanged since the time 
when the Hessian commandant of the Green Yagers 
occupied it, and General Washington made it his 
headquarters just before his triumphal entry into New 
York on Evacuation Day, 1783. Around the fireplace 
are old-fashioned blue tiles, that tell Scriptural stories 
in the quaint method of illustration then prevailing, 
where saint and sinner were alike, as my grandmother 
would say, " a sight to behold." The deep window- 
seats are admirably suggestive of a quiet smoke for 
the elders and cosey flirtations for the younger people. 
Andirons, which have a history of their own, speak 
comfortable words of the day of back-logs and plente- 
ous brushwood. As for the furniture, it is again in 
fashion and most valuable, for it is genuine in its an- 
tiquity. Jarvis, Copley, Stewart, and Chapman have 
furnished the family portraits, one of which is that of 
a knighted vice-admiral of the British Navy. 

But thereby hangs a tale. Outside, above the old- 
fashioned windows, are some exceedingly grim visages 
carved in stone in the shape of corbels, whose serious, 
not to say morose, aspect would be calculated to drive 
away any sensitive tramp in affright. Pointing up to 
them, my quondam school-mate, Bowie Dash, who 
occupies an ideal cottage embowered by the trees 
that fringe the ridge through which Riverdale Ave- 
nue sweeps, remarked, " Those are the portraits of 
the Van Cortlandt ancestors — family portraits, all of 
them." "Yes," said Mr. Van Cortlandt, with all seri- 
ousness, " and that particularly solemn one yonder 
was carved after he had been out all night with the 
boys." 

The windows themselves present an interesting sci- 



340 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

entific problem. Upon two sides of the house the 
glass has all the appearance of ground glass, though 
it was perfectly transparent when first placed there. 
Closer examination reveals a process of disintegra- 
tion, spiculae of glass falling off when scraped by the 
finger-nails. Amateur scientists have been unable to 
account for it. Exposure to the salt-water of Mosho- 
lu Creek would be a plausible theory if all the glass 
fared alike. But some years ago the rows of stately 
box, venerable for their height and antiquity, which 
stood in the old garden and faced the windows that 
exhibit this phenomenon, were cut down, and the 
glass that has been inserted since that time shows no 
sign of change or decay. Whether the combination 
of box scents and salt air will account for the problem 
is a matter which only experimental science can de- 
termine, and Mr. Van Cortlandt would be very glad 
to have the puzzle solved. 

There is scarcely a foot of ground about Kings- 
bridge that is not historical. Here the British had 
their outposts in the Revolution. Both sides erected 
earthworks on the adjacent hills. Skirmishes were 
frequent in these meadows, and many lives were sac- 
rificed. Relics of the war — cannon-balls, bayonets, 
skeletons in full uniform — have been turned up by 
spade and plough, and many more are awaiting their 
resurrection at the hands of public improvements. 
The old tavern at Kingsbridge saw lively times in 
peace as well as war. The Albany post-road passed 
its door, and teams and passengers baited here. Dain- 
ty dames in lofty headgear and ample hoops have 
danced with the sons of the patroons on its floors, and 
smugglers have made it their headquarters for lawless 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



341 



forays. Going, going, gone. The public surveyor 
and the modern apartment-house are in hot pursuit of 
these romantic old localities. One has only to turn 
into Riverdale Avenue to be aware that the luxurious 
civilization of the period is learning to appreciate the 
beauties of this neighborhood, which, when I was a 
boy, was associated with the names of Lispenard 
Stewart, Abraham 
Schermerhorn, Ack- 
erman, Delafield, 
Wetmore, and Whit- 
ing. 

It will be a pity to 
blot out the natural 
beauties of the spot 
for the sake of a lit- 
tle more brick and 
mortar — at least, I 
thought so last Sun- 
day as I climbed up 
Riverdale Avenue 
and fancied mj^self 
temporarily in Ely- 
sium. Riding is too 
rapid a gait to al- 
low of realizing the 
beauty of forest, ra- 
vine, meadow, hill- 
side, brook, and 
homes enshrined in 

landscape loveliness which is presented to the pedes- 
trian on either side of the road. Tired ? Not a bit of 
it, even if I am growing stout, and this is considerable 




THE LANE IN VAN CORTLAND 1' PARK. 



342 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

of a hill to climb. I am looking at that maple. Did 
you ever see such a splendor of crimson and gold as 
lights up its top and sides ? That fringed gentian — 
are not its purple spikes a delectable contrast to the 
sunny clusters of its taller neighbor, the golden-rod ? 
The oak leaves are turning ruddy, too, as if they had 
been imbibing freely of the autumn's product. These 
old fellows have a right to be jolly, too, for they were 
children at the time when Hendrik Hudson anchored 
in Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and shot a falcon at two 
hundred Indians who had gathered on shore to dis- 
pute the right of way, and dispersed them with the 
noise and execution of this terrible weapon. 

There is one oak still standing in a little wood that 
has known no change for a century, which has a his- 
tory of its own. It is a sturdy tree with ample brown 
arms, clad to-day in a royal robe of purple, and defi- 
ant seemingly of all changes except such as the icon- 
oclastic axe of the woodman may bring. You can 
see it from the road. Under its branches, so my in- 
formant tells me, a horse that bore a good soldier of 
the Union all through the late war, and whose gray 
coat is still presentable, is grazing peacefully. But in 
other days these great gnarled limbs bore other fruit. 
Tradition affirms that during the war of the Revolu- 
tion more than thirty cowboys were hanged from this 
oak, and the annals of those days bear out the popu- 
lar legend. This was part of the " neutral ground " 
of '76 — a territory extending from Harlem River to 
the Croton, which was ravaged with engaging impar- 
tiality by the camp-followers of both armies. The 
British called themselves irregulars, but the name 
" cowboys " could not be wiped out, and their punish- 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 



343 



ment was never irregular when they were caught. 
The gentlemen who did the same favor to the Conti- 
nental flag were called " skinners," and their shrift 
was an equally short one when caught. Usually the 
latter had the best of the game, because the sympa- 
thies of all except the large landed proprietors were 
with the colonies. 

Beyond the wild primeval wood that holds this his- 
toric oak stands what seems to me, for situation and 

surroundings, the most 
beautiful home in the city. 
A stately stone mansion, 
half covered with vines and 








VAN CORTLANDT MANOR-HOUSE 
[See also p. 317] 



encircled by thirteen majestic elms, stands on a 
knoll which overlooks the Mosholu Valley and gives 
glimpses of twenty miles away. Nature did nearly 
all that was possible for its seventeen acres, and the 
landscape-gardener has finished it. At one side all is 



344 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

wildly picturesque, with ravine and brook and masses 
of rock ; on the other civilization has done its best, 
and equally admirably. On an apple-tree, still stand- 
ing. Jacobus Van Cortlandt carved his name nearly 
two centuries ago, and the stout stone farm-house 
that another Van Cortlandt built in 1766 shelters the 
coachman's family. The place is now owned by Mr. 
Waldo Hutchins, who has been living there for the 
past twenty years. 

Broad piazzas, a hall of ample width that shows no 
sign of a stairway, great rooms with high ceilings, 
thick walls, and large windows recall the old baronial 
homes of Virginia. But there the resemblance ceases, 
save in the matter of baronial hospitality, for modern 
luxury clothes the interior more royally than our an- 
cestors dreamed of — and, it must be confessed, more 
comfortably. Of the family heirlooms within, two 
portraits taken from life interested me most. One is 
of Noah Webster — the maternal grandfather of Mrs. 
Hutchins — the patient, industrious builder of the dic- 
tionary, who wrought at his work for twenty years, 
until his fingers became stiff from using the pen, and 
he fainted away when he had written the word "Fi- 
nis." No wonder. I held some of his manuscript in 
my hand, and it made me tired to look at its intrica- 
cies, it was so suggestive of hard work. The other 
portrait presents Oliver Ellsworth, the paternal grand- 
father of Mrs. Hutchins, in his robe of Chief-justice 
of the United States, only with the addition of a red 
velvet collar to set off the sombreness of the heavy 
folds of black silk. His is a typical New England 
face, intellectual, determined, and strong. A later 
generation has forgotten that after the " Virginia 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 345 

plan " had been adopted by the Constitutional Con- 
vention of 1787, on the basis of a "national Govern- 
ment," or a single republic, in contradistinction to a 
Federal Union of separate States, on motion of Mr. 
Ellsworth the word " national " was stricken out and 
the words "Government of the United States" sub- 
stituted in its place. 

Riverdale Avenue forms a beautiful drive. Its 
roadway is as smooth as any drive in Central Park, 
and it has every advantage in the way of scenery. 
But this holds good only up to the city line, beyond 
which point the Yonkers authorities seem to look 
upon it as a country road, and treat it accordingly. 
The castellated mansion which Edwin Forrest built, 
and which he named Font Hill, marks the end of the 
city limits. It long ago passed into the hands of a 
religious sisterhood, who use it for school purposes. 
Poor Forrest ! He had no taste for domestic life, and 
his happiest hours were passed upon the stage. Chance 
brought me frequently, when a boy, into the company 
of his wife and her sisters, Mrs. Voorhees and Miss 
Virginia Sinclair, and all my boyish sympathies were 
enlisted in their behalf and against the man who had 
slandered the woman who bore his name. I never 
pass the neighborhood of the old city residence of 
Forrest, on Twenty-second Street, near Eighth Ave- 
nue, but I think of this unhappy episode. Font Hill 
is the monument of his blasted hopes. 

One would think it would be a pleasure to live in 
sight of the Palisades of the Hudson, but a gentleman 
who occupied a house on the banks of the Hudson for 
several years assures me that his experience was dis- 
enchanting. The sight of that tall barrier of rock and 



346 A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 

woods beyond the silver waves of the Hudson grew 
terribly monotonous. He wanted to throw it down 
and get a glimpse of the lovelier landscape that he 
knew lay beyond it. A sense of imprisonment crept 
over him, and he was glad at last to move away. His 
paradise of the Palisades had its apple-tree and ser- 
pent. Viewed in this light, there was an element of 
reality in the joke of that wild wag, Fred Cozzens, 
who astonished the people of Kingsbridge and Yonk- 
ers by deliberately proposing to whitewash the Pali- 
sades. He argued that the effect would be wholesome 
to the eye and refreshing to the public taste, while it 
would break the monotony of the landscape, and give 
them something bright and clean to look at instead of 
venerable and dusty rocks. Such was his apparent 
sincerity and earnestness that he found many sympa- 
thizers, and for a while the contest over the proposi- 
tion raged hotly. 

As I steal back to the lower city, and the thousands 
of lights that dot Harlem Plains break into sight, like 
the sudden rush and twinkle of a myriad of huge fire- 
flies, I got to wondering at a letter which came to me 
a few days before. Was it a joke ? The writer more 
than hints that Felix Oldboy knows nothing of " the 
elite of the city in former years." Perhaps not. But 
how the men and women of those days would have 
smiled at the word " ehte." Most of them never 
heard it, probably, and none of them would have suf- 
fered their names to be printed in an " Elite Direc- 
tory." Fancy one of the sons of the Knickerbockers 
being asked if he belonged to the " elite !" One rea- 
son, I think, why Felix Oldboy loves the New York 
of former times, and seldom passes one of its historic 



A TOUR AROUND NEW YORK 347 

points without some such quickening of the pulse as 
he feels when some one speaks of fields in the late 
war upon which he drew a sword, is that he has an 
ancestral interest in them. When Congress called for 
troops in 1775, Colonel Oldboy, my ancestor, led a 
battalion into the field, and his oldest son, also an an- 
cestor of mine, commanded a company in it. On his 
manorial estate, which his father had held before him, 
his wife held high state, and those who wished to 
stand well in her eyes always addressed her as Lady 
Oldboy. It is said to have been an awesome sight 
when Lady Washington and Lady Oldboy met and 
exchanged stately courtesies. Lafayette, who was 
an ardent personal friend of Colonel Oldboy, and pre- 
sented him at one time with an elegant suit that had 
just arrived from Paris, whose most striking ingredi- 
ent was a brigiit green silk waistcoat that is still pre- 
served in the family, was a conspicuous figure at Lady 
Oldboy's manorial receptions. Were these stately 
old souls the "elite?" If they were, they did not 
know it, and I, for one, would not have liked to call 
them, to their face, by such a name. 

As for the rest, these papers were not intended as a 
topical or social history. They are simply the record 
of a random tour through places whose acquaintance 
I made as a boy, that recall the people of other days 
whom I have known. 

"Felix," said my grandmother, "always cut your 
cloth by your pattern." 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



CHAPTER I 

FELIX OLDBOY'S HOT WEATHER HOME — ON THE EAST RIVER, FACING 
HELL GATE — A STATELY MANSION OF SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO 
— SOLITUDE IN THE CITY 

I DISCOVERED it. A new De Soto, in panta- 
loons, coat of broadcloth and silk hat — most degen- 
erate successors of the velvets and lace and plumes of 
three centuries ago. I was making a pedestrian voyage 
through the old haunts of my boyhood when I sight- 
ed a lonely acre of ground in which stood an ancient 
house and some still more venerable trees. To the 
eye of the casual voyager it was a wreck amid the 
spick and span newness of the busy town that had 
grown up around it and overshadowed its age with 
noise and bustle, but I knew better. To me it was an 
oasis amid a desert of strange faces and crowding 
streets. Not Robinson Crusoe was more delighted 
with the treasures of his island home in the Pacific 
than I with this acre of sunshine and grasses and 
green leaves, lapped by the tides of a swift river on 
one side and by the waves of sound from a great city 
all about it. The hand of improvement had claimed 



350 MY SUMMER ACRE 

the house for its own, and the progress of prosperity 
had decreed its destruction. But I pleaded for yet 
another year of its Hfe, and my prayer was heard. 
Some of my friends smiled at the madness of the 
project, and others prophesied that I would soon 
weary of my exile, and others yet again drew enticing 
pictures of the pleasures to be found at the sea-side 
and in the mountains ; but these things were as little 
to the purpose as warnings that the heat of the dog- 
days would beat pitilessly upon the house, and the 
dust of droughts encompass it. I persisted in my 
plan and in the early spring moved with a strange de- 
light, that somehow felt like the quickening pulse of 
boyhood, into what my daughter Nellie was pleased 
to call the ark. 

My summer acre fronts upon the East River, near 
the spot where the waters of Hell Gate begin to 
seethe and swirl. Standing on the little bluff in 
which its garden ends, and towards which its velvety 
lawn descends from the back porch, one can see the 
rarest and loveliest of pictures. Across and up the 
river where Pot Rock once made the waters boil and 
the Frying Pan was a terror to navigators ; where 
Flood Rock is alternately submerged and exposed by 
the tides; where the Hog's Back and Nigger's Head 
yet wreck an occasional vessel ; where the shaded 
river road of Astoria allows rare glimpses of stately 
mansions between the trees, and the green ramparts 
of Ward's Island are wondrous pleasant to the eye 
and hide other lovely islands beyond that are fruitful 
of legends as of lobsters — are stretches of scenery than 
which there is nothing more beautiful on the Atlantic 
coast line. Back of me and on either hand may be 



MY SUMMER ACRE 351 

heard the coarse melody of the hand-organ, the stri- 
dent shriek of steam, the shouts of children at play in 
the streets, the ceaseless undertone of wagon and in- 
cessant hum of labor, and the puff of steamboat and 
clatter of tug may be heard upon the waters; but the 
sunshine turns the silver of the breakers upon the rocks 
to gold, the shadows of overhanging trees mirror them- 
selves in the quiet waters of tiny bays, the little hills 
are clothed with beauty as with a garment, and I have 
enough of imagination left to fancy myself in Arcadia. 
The house is as old as our second war with Great 
Britain. It was built for the summer residence of a 
family whose city mansion was then in the neighbor- 
hood of the Bowling Green. Built in a most substan- 
tial manner of wood, it is two stories in height, sur- 
mounted by a "gallery" — a flattened top to its slightly 
sloping roof that is fenced in by a light and graceful 
railing. Here, at the close of the summer day, the 
family would gather to enjoy the sunset hour, and 
here, not infrequently, tea was handed around, .to be 
followed by supper at a later hour. Seen from the 
street, the building is long and low, painted white, 
with a wide porch upheld by plain white columns, 
smooth and round, extending along the entire front 
as well as the rear. The windows have small panes, 
and the shutters are of solid wood with round holes 
cut through the tops. The north side is shaded by 
an immense elm that must have been mature when 
the house was born, and at the south side are a cluster 
of ancient cherry-trees, whose scant blossoms in April 
were like the white locks on the head of fourscore 
years. Honeysuckle vines almost cover the porch ; 
lilac bushes rise up to hide the view of garden and 



352 MY SUMMER ACRE 

lawn, and a gigantic pine, that tradition declares to be 
older than the Union, stands sentinel at the front 
gate. It is small wonder that I loved the place when 
I saw it. 

Within the house there was an air of by-gone state- 
liness in the wide central hall and large, empty rooms 
on either side, which my daughter Nellie (her name 
by baptism is Eleanor) has toned down into an at- 
mosphere of enticing comfort by the deft witchery of 
a woman's touch. The solid mahogany doors and 
oaken wainscoting are still there, but portieres and 
rugs, sleepy hollows of chairs and lounges that irre- 
sistibly invite to forty winks of sleep, have lessened 
their imposing effect, and I have only partly revived 
the antique by insisting upon dining at my grand- 
mother's massive mahogany table, having my ancient 
mahogany chairs with tall backs placed on guard in 
hall and parlor, and having time dealt out to us by a 
clock above whose face the moon rolls out its changes 
and whose case reaches quite up to the ceiling. Thus 
the old keeps its ground, even if the new challenges 
it at every turn. 

" Snug," said my friend, the old colonel, as he stood 
in the hall and looked about him, taking in, with a 
twitch of satisfaction at his mouth, the wood fire that 
blazed on the parlor hearth in the chill May morn- 
ing. " Upon my word, Felix, it is not half as bad as 
it might be. For a dreamer like you, it's snug." That 
was praise indeed. For be it known that the colonel, 
who prides himself upon being a man of action, labors 
under the conceit that, because I love the past and am 
apt to be happy in the company of ghosts, and, in- 
deed, at times to seek their fellowship, I am a dreamer. 




;:rffll!;:Sr|:i:i!i;!iai:i;;in:ipi:j||| 



MY SUMMER ACRE 355 

He is young, intensely young. His family Bible de- 
clares that he has passed the earthly limit of four- 
score years, and this one fact has almost led me to 
doubt the testimony of that book and to declare my- 
self an agnostic. Though I am much his junior, he 
persists in declaring that I am the elder of the two, 
and to look at him one might believe him my con- 
temporary in years. When he enters and calls for me 
to come out and take a constitutional, I drop pen or 
book and surrender at discretion. If on these occa- 
sions I can get off with a march of five miles, I count 
myself fortunate. I verily believe he will be able to 
do his ten miles a day when he rounds the century 
point. 

If the old colonel has an aggressive quality it is his 
intensity. He does nothing by halves. Upright in 
every thought and act, he would never be content to 
go to a half-way heaven, or send his enemies to a half- 
way hell. Yet he has the heart of a little child. To 
hear him after a ferocious fashion pitch into radicalism 
— for he imagines himself the most consistent of con- 
servatives — with an emphasis that might lead the 
black cook in the kitchen to imagine that the house 
is on fire, while all the time he is caressing a purring 
kitten on his ample knee and its mother sits blinking 
confidingly at him, is to inspire the spectator with a 
doubt whether he, the spectator, has as yet really ac- 
quired a knowledge of human nature. On these oc- 
casions I am as speechless as the cats. Like them, I 
blink ; superior to them, I smoke, and hide mj'self be- 
hind a cloud. But Nellie has only to raise a finger, 
and the voice of the old warrior, who is her devoted 
slave, sinks almost to a whisper. Mistress Nell knows 



356 MY SUMMER ACRE 

her power, and does not hesitate to exercise it. In 
fact, as between her little ladyship in the parlor and 
massive Diana in the kitchen, I am always ready to 
own the inferiority of my sex — inside the house, of 
course. But to see the old colonel meet and exchange 
compliments with his enslaver, after the stately meth- 
ods of sixty years ago, is a lesson in manners which I 
cannot help wishing were taught in our clubs of to- 
day. 

Our cats are three in number. Nebuchadnezzar, an 
immense feline symphony in yellow and white, is my 
special property, and usually answers to the name of 
" Neb." Martha Washington, whose attire is an un- 
broken black, is more generally known as " Pat." I 
have my doubts whether the Father of his Country 
ever called Mrs. Washington " Pat," or would have 
dared to do so, but he speaks frequently in his letters 
and diary of his favorite niece, his " dearest Patsey." 
Satan, the small black son of Martha Washington, 
completes the group. Very important are these three 
to my life in my summer acre. I cannot make the 
round of my domains in comfort unless Nebuchad- 
nezzar is trotting at my heels, and Mrs. W. is the 
faithful attendant and beloved confidant of Master 
Felix Oldboy, Jr., aged fourteen. As for Satan, he 
shall speak for himself. 

Nellie laughs at my idea of contentment in an acre. 
Even so did I laugh in my youth. Bless her heart, 
and keep it childlike ! I know that by-and-by will 
come a time when she will understand how it is that 
an acre is a world to a child of threescore, and will 
realize that my sunshine is as full of warmth and 
splendor as if I were possessor of an estate as big as a 



MV SUMMER ACRE 



357 



township. I sit watching the moon rise over the bub- 
bling waters of Hell Gate, and hold in my hand the 
slender palm of my little boy — the Benjamin of my 
riper years — whose love I would not exchange for the 
crown of the czars. The boy turns and smiles as if 
he had read my thoughts, and Nebuchadnezzar sol- 
emnly rises, rubs himself against us, and purs a whole 
hymn of happiness. 




AN OLD-TIME FIRE-CAP 



358 MY SUMMER ACRE 



CHAPTER II 

THE DARK PHANTOM WHICH DOGGED A POSTMAN'S FEET — A GAR- 
DEN CALENDAR — NOTES OF THE FARM ACRE 

The steps of the letter-carrier, who had just brought 
the mail, rattled away briskly around the corner. 
The blithe little man in gray, who, with a bundle of 
letters and newspapers in hand, has walked the dis- 
tance of five times around the globe in the last twenty- 
three years, had set me to thinking. If letter-carriers 
ever die — and I have a sort of hazy belief that they 
gradually cremate themselves, and so vanish into thin 
air as they walk — this, cheery man of letters, whom 
the street knows and smiles upon as Bob, will be found 
on the threshold of that particular one of the many 
mansions which is devoted to the post-office depart- 
ment, with a package in his hand and a smile on his 
face. Yet he has a dark phantom of care that some- 
times falls into step behind him and dogs his feet. 
He believes that had his childhood been happier he 
might have made a success in life, and success in his 
vocabulary — for Bob is not wiser than his generation 
— means wealth and position. It is too bad, though I 
did not tell him so. There is no man so poor and 
powerless but that he can give his son or daughter a 
happy childhood. Then, however bitter the battle 
may be afterwards, there will be years of sunshine to 



MY SUMMER ACRE 359 

look back upon, and no cloud can dim them, no burg- 
lar steal their remembrance. 

But Bob told the story a great deal more to the 
point than I am doing. Let him speak. And bear 
in mind that he told it with no attempt at sympathy 
and no thought of sentiment. It was my boy's new 
jacket, of which he had caught a glimpse, and which 
he evidently admired on sesthetic principles, because 
it was a change, which started the stream of reminis- 
cence. 

" A jacket was the turning-point in my life," so the 
man of mails began. " When I was a boy of fourteen 
years I wanted a velvet jacket, such as were then the 
fashion with people who were richer than ourselves. 
The price was seven dollars ; and as I knew there was 
no use in asking for it, I determined to earn the 
money and save it up. It was a tight pull, I can tell 
you, but at last I pulled through all right. Wasn't I 
proud w^hen fr counted up the seven dollars ! and I 
was happy, too, in anticipation of wearing the jacket 
the next Sunday. I went to my father, put the mon- 
ey in his hand, and told him what I wanted. Of 
course, I would not think of getting it myself ; boys 
did not do business in that way when I w^as young. 
At night my father came home with a bundle, and I 
ran to see it opened. He pulled out a dark satinet 
jacket that I was sure did not cost half the money, 
threw it down before me, and, with the remark that it 
was plent]^ good enough for me to wear, turned to go 
out of the room. My heart and my courage were 
broken, but I managed to speak. ' Father,' I said, 
' I will never save another penny as long as I live.' 
I have kept my promise. It was the turning-point of 



360 MY SUMMER ACRE 

my life, and I think it took all ambition out of me. 
So you see me a letter-carrier at fifty — a mere machine 
to plod the streets. It all came of that jacket. I re- 
member it as if it were yesterday." " Did your father 
give you back the rest of the money?" I asked. 
"Never!" That is all. It was not much of a trag- 
edy, yet it marred a life. 

The garden is a daily delight to me. The only 
drawback is the fear that some neighbor may chance 
to criticise it in a friendly way as small. Yet, in the 
spirit of the contented African who anticipated criti- 
cism by saying in praise of the turkey he had won at 
a raffle, " De breed am small, but de flavor am deli- 
cious," I am prepared to take up a similar line of eu- 
logy on my garden. Take it as you please, on either 
the ornamental or the useful side. There never were 
such battlements of box as hedge in the gravel-walks ; 
no such velvet covers a drawing-room floor as that bit 
of lawn that stretches down to the little bluff above 
the river ; those roses that weight the bushes are 
peerless, and the fragrance of the syringa buds is the 
very refinement of orange blossoms, and redolent with 
every breath of the youth and beauty that plucked 
their ancestral twigs in evenings of long ago. The 
lilacs have had their day, but wait until the lady's- 
slippers and marigolds and hollyhocks take up their 
march in battalions, and the sweet-peas, four-o'clocks, 
and morning-glories show their colors ! On the wis- 
tarias thick green leaves have succeeded the purple 
clusters of flowers that greeted May, but the leaves 
of the honeysuckle-vine are not so many as its tendril- 
like blossoms of buff and pink and white, and the 
odor is at times a revelation in the way of teaching 



MY SUMMER ACRE 361 

humanity the right use of the nose. For, at times, as 
I sit under the shadow of the honeysuckle, the ca- 
dences of odor strike a succession of keys in what is 
hterally my organ of smell, and recall so many forgot- 
ten episodes that had the fragrance of a spray of hon- 
eysuckle or the scent of a June rose for their connect- 
ing link, that I feel like having the rector return 
special thanks in the church next Sunday for the gift 
of noses to men. 

On the March day in which I first walked the 
bounds of my territory, I noticed, not far from the 
river-side, in a depression of the ground that seemed 
to have once been the bed of a brook, a bunch of 
pussy willows, which had already put forth its buds. 
Some of these buds were silver gray and others were 
brown in color, but all were soft and fleecy as the 
skins of little mice. A willow-tree that stood near 
by had but cut its leaves on April 20th ; a week later 
the maples had caught up with them, and the next 
week saw the poplars and elms slowly spreading out 
their verdure. Meantime the lilac bushes had forged 
ahead, and at the finish were most luxuriant of all in 
the full, free spread of their dark green foliage. The 
cherry-trees, I noticed, were first of the fruits to put 
out their blossoms, and were in full bloom on April 
28th. It was ten days later that the pink loveliness 
of the peach-tree dawned, with spikes of green leaves 
yet unfolded showing between the flowers, and it was 
not until the middle of May that an apple-tree, which 
shades the kitchen, and which the builder of the 
house planted at his wife's request to shade the maid 
when she churned, was in the full bloom of its beau- 
ty — an animated milky way. Early in Easter week 



362 MY SUMMER ACRE 

the dandelion had spread its modest oriflamme to the 
air, and on Easter Sunday, April 21st, a bush of gold- 
en-bells gave notice that the season of flowers had 
fairly dawned. Already, too, the red and saffron 
shoots of peonies had thrust their heads well above- 
ground, and thick bunches of hollyhock leaves had 
raised their protest against further slumber in the life 
of plants. On the day that May came in, the pink 
profusion of the flowering almond had entered on its 
brief career ; then came the lilacs, heavy with sweet 
scent ; the blossoms of the hawthorn hedge, laden 
with honey; the clover, red and white, and, before the 
month had closed, roses, honeysuckle, bluebells, sy- 
ringa, and pink balls of peony bloom had blended a 
marvellous kaleidoscope of colors in the garden. 

Not being entirely confident of results, I have laid 
out my vegetable garden in the north-east corner of 
my acre, where it does not obtrude upon criticism. 
My farm in the rear of the house is divided in twain 
by a broad, box-bordered gravel-walk. The southern 
half is lawn. Next to the walk, in the northern half, 
is the flower-garden — a plot of some sixty feet by 
thirty — and, beyond, a plot of similar size is devoted 
to vegetables. It is a miracle of thrifty promise now. 
The peas have clambered up into the brush and put 
forth their milk-white blossoms; the heart-shaped 
leaves on the bean-stalks have broadened out to full 
size ; the tomato plants, looking like young elms, have 
learned to stand alone ; three rows of silky, shining 
spears are rising to conceal the fence and sentinel the 
patch, and at their feet are the beginnings of squash 
vines. 

The modern statesman declares that the Indian 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



363 



cannot be made a 
f arme r, but I 
have an idea that 
the statesman is 
a mere Dogberry 
in agriculture. 
When Hendrik 
Hudson visited 
the village of Sa- 
pohanikan — a set- 
tlement of forty 
men and seven- 
teen women who 
cultivated a por- 
tion of what is 
now the Ninth 
Ward — he found 
a circular barn 
built of oak bark 
and having an 
arched roof, 
which " contain- 
ed a great quan- 
tity of maize or Indian corn, and beans of last year's 
growth; and there lay near the house, for the purpose 
of drying, enough to load three ships, besides what 
was growing in the fields." And that veracious histo- 
rian, Van der Donck, speaks of " a vegetable pecul- 
iar to the natives, called by our people quaasiens 
(squashes), a name derived from the aborigines, as the 
plant was not known to us before our intercourse 
with them. It is a delightful fruit, as well to the eye 
for its colors as to the mouth for its agreeable taste." 




DUTCH HOUSES 



364 MY SUMMER ACRE 

Well might the poet, Evert Nieuwenhof, write of Man- 
hattan : 

" Why mourn about Brazil, full of base Portuguese, 
When Van der Donck shows so much better fare ?" 



That was a mosquito which interrupted me and 
shortened the quotation, but I have killed him. He 
came across the river from Long Island. Van der 
Donck makes no mention of mosquitoes as native to 
the Island of Manhattan, and I know that ours are 
imported. I may be proud enough of my country to 
cease to plead the baby act and to take my chances 
as a free-trader, but I believe in protection against 
the ferocious domestic dragons of Long Island — the 
carnivorous winged monster which goes by the harm- 
less name of mosquito. The infant gnats of New 
York can never compete with them. 

I said that I had killed him, but I was mistaken. 
He is back again, and as numerous as FalstafT's men 
in buckram. The pen is feebler than his spear, and I 
lay it down. 



MY SUMMER ACRE 365 



CHAPTER III 

THE NEW WORLD VENICE — PANORAMA OF EAST RIVER ISLANDS — A 
LOVELY WATER JOURNEY — AN OLD-TIME SHERIFF IN HIS HOME 

It has always seemed a pity to be compelled to 
bid good-bye to the Maelstrom, Nero's Fiddle, the 
Mountains of the Moon, the pot of gold that lies 
buried at the foot of the rainbow, and other delusions 
of my youth, and to have to exchange the poetry of 
fancy for the prose of fact. It has been a disappoint- 
ment to me not to find Hell Gate the terror that the 
early Dutch navigator described it, and yet I must 
confess that this loss is in great measure made up by 
its ineffaceable beauty. The Rev. Master Woolley, 
who published a journal of his visit to America in 
1678, speaks of Hell Gate as being "as dangerous as 
the Norway maelstrom," and says: "In this Hell 
Gate, which is a narrow passage, runneth a rapid, vio- 
lent stream, both upon flood and ebb ; and in the 
middle lieth some islands of rocks, upon which the 
current sets so violently that it threatens present 
shipwrack ; and upon the flood is a large whirlpool, 
which sends forth a continual, hideous roaring." Into 
this wild whirl of waters no early navigator ventured 
to embark except of necessity, and the superstition 
of sailors expressed itself in giving the names of " Dev- 
il's Frying Pan " and " Devil's Gridiron " to two of its 
reefs. To-night, as we sit upon the back porch, smok- 



366 MY SUMMER ACRE 

ing our pipes in enjoyment that needs few words for 
its expression, I am entirely disposed to go out of the 
past into the present. Seldom has a more lovely 
picture been spread before the eye. The waters are 
silvered everywhere by moonlight, and the ripples on 
rock and reef are burnished to unearthly brightness. 
The city lies hidden by the vines that overshadow us. 
Across the swift stream the horizon is bounded by 
clustering trees that more than half conceal the homes 
on the Long Island shore, and on the islands below 
and above us the moon tips turreted buildings that 
have almost buried themselves in foliage, and that 
lend the landscape an old-time appearance. Across 
the bosom of the rapid river flash craft of every build, 
from the great steamship on her trip to Maine to the 
dancing row-boat on pleasure or lobstering intent. 
We smoke in silence, we two who have had our day 
and yet are younger in heart than many who are our 
juniors by a score or two of years ; indeed, the youth- 
fulness of my comrade sometimes appalls me, as to- 
night when he proposed that we should hire a launch 
and explore the East River. 

It would be no bad thing if every New Yorker who 
has the time to spare could make a voyage of discov- 
ery between Governor's Island and Throgg's Neck. 
To travel swiftly through on a steamboat would not 
answer the purpose. A sail-boat that would skirt the 
islands and penetrate the bays, or a naphtha launch 
which would make its way in spite of currents, is 
what the Columbus of the East River needs. That 
part of New York which flies to Bar Harbor or New- 
port for scenery or the sea does not know that the 
sea and its estuaries, its rocks, and its tides, are at 



MY SUMMER ACRE 367 

their doors. The Palisades and Highlands of the 
Hudson have had their eulogists for half a century, 
and the Tappan Zee and Catskill Mountains have 
been immortalized in romance, but poetry has yet 
to discover the rare beauties of the East River, 
whose water-front is not surpassed in attractiveness 
in any country. Gemmed with islands, garlanded 
with woods, beset by rocks which are rich in legend- 
ary lore, and headlands that are redolent of history ; 
in many spots as unchanged as in the days when Har- 
lem was a tiny, sleepy settlement, remote from the 
busy City of New Amsterdam ; this arm of the sea is 
one of the loveliest, if least regarded, features of the 
grandest of Arnerican cities. 

When New York was created to be a great mari- 
time city, care was taken to supply it with all that it 
should need in the way of islands, and they were 

1 strewn about its main island foundation with proper 
picturesqueness. Those who remember the islands in 
their primeval loveliness, when they were the homes 
of some of our ancient families, and were clad in verd- 

I ure in summer, and in impressive dreariness in win- 
ter, may regret that the city has been compelled to 
use some of them as homes for the sick and the sin- 
ner, but even the stern majesty of the law cannot 
make them other than beautiful. It is a matter of 
congratulation with those who believe that the useful 
need not be ugly that there are some things which 
the hands of men who fancy that they can always im- 
prove upon nature cannot mar. The islands in the 
East River will always remain an enchanting feature 
in the topography of this maritime metropolis, and 
New Yorkers, who are somewhat prone to overlook 



368 MY SUMMER ACRE 

advantages which lie directly at their doors, will some 
day open their eyes to appreciate them just as the 
old colonel and I feast our eyes upon stray bits of 
their loveliness to-night. 

The little island at the mouth of the East River, 
which is owned by the United States, but will revert 
to the city if its bristling cannon and other parapher- 
nalia of war are abandoned and its flag is drawn down, 
was historically and municipally connected with other 
islands in the river from the early days of the Dutch 
Governors of New Netherlands. Its Indian name was 
Pagganck, or Nut Island, lengthened by the Dutch 
into Noton, or Nutten Island, and from the first set- 
tlement was made a perquisite of the director-general 
for the time being. Hither the small boy, who could 
then wade across from Red Hook or paddle himself 
from New Amsterdam, went to gather the plentiful 
crop of chestnuts until such time as an English Gov- 
ernor erected a summer-house on one of its knolls. 
The renowned Wouter Van Twiller, the Doubter, 
whose only certainty in life was that public ofifice was 
a private trust, and who was the ofificial ancestor of a 
long line of land-grabbers, was the original purchaser 
of Pagganck from Cacapetegno and Pewihas, the abo- 
riginal owners, and while he bought this realm of the 
bluebird and bobolink in his capacity of director- 
general of the New Netherlands, he proceeded to use 
it as private property, as he did also Great Barn and 
Little Barn Islands — the latter now known as Ward's 
and Randall's islands, and stocked and cultivated 
them for the benefit of his own purse. Their " high 
mightinesses, the lords of the honorable West India 
Company," did not relish these proceedings, and sub- 



MY SUMMER ACRE 369 

sequently ordered Governor Stuyvesant to take steps 
to secure "Nut Island and Hell Gate" as public 
property, and this was done. One of the English suc- 
cessors of Walter, the Doubter, was a man after his 
own heart. For, when the Colonial Assembly placed 
iJ"iOOO at the disposal of Lord Cornbury to fortify the 
island, that luxurious gentleman proceeded to expend 
the money in erecting for himself a handsome coun- 
try residence there, and it was not until the war of 
the Revolution broke out that fortifications were 
erected there alternately by the patriot and British 
forces. After peace was declared, and Governor Clin- 
ton, as executive of the sovereign and independent 
State of New York, came into possession of the island, 
he leased it for the purposes of a race-course and ho- 
tel, and all New York went pleasuring there. But when, 
in the last term of President Washington, dark clouds 
of war threatened the young republic, the island was 
thoroughly fortified by volunteers from the city, under 
the inspiring watchwords of " Free trade and sailors' 
rights," and since that time it has ceased to exist as a 
gubernatorial perquisite or a haunt of sylvan peace. 

Apparently there must have been always something 
official about the long, narrow strip of Blackvvell's Isl- 
and in the East River, for it belonged to one of the 
Dutch Governors, and was known as The Long Island 
(the Indians called it Minnahannonck) at the time 
when the island which now passes by the latter name 
was known as Nassau Island. John Manning, who 
had been captain of a trading vessel between New 
York and New Haven, and had abandoned business 
for a commission in the colonial forces, was appointed 
sheriff of New York after its first conquest by the 



370 MY SUMMER ACRE 

British, and from the emoluments of the office made 
purchase of The Long Island. The bargain turned 
out to be a prudent one for him, and, moreover, dur- 
ing his incumbency the Duke of York, stirred to the 
very pocket by having the city named after his royal 
worthlessness, sent over a silver mace to be carried at 
the head of the procession of city magistrates, silken 
gowns faced with fur for the seven aldermen, liveries 
of blue and orange for the beadles and constables, and 
a crimson robe, cocked hat, and sword for the use of 
the sheriff. Nothing so magnificent as these civic 
dignitaries on parade had been seen in the little city. 
Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like 
the sheriff or the town constable. But this gorgeous 
state of affairs was short-lived. The Dutch were slow 
to anger, yet at the end of five years news came that 
a Dutch fleet was on its way to the harbor, prepared 
and competent to blow the English fort and its de- 
fenders to atoms. Governor Lovelace went to Bos- 
ton to seek help and Manning was left in command 
of the soldiers, when Admiral Evertsen poured a 
broadside into the city, and proved his ability to bring 
down its houses and fortifications over their ears. 
Manning surrendered, and after the city had been re- 
stored to the English by treaty, he was tried by court- 
martial, and sentenced to have his sword broken over 
his own head and to be forever barred from holding 
any public position. On a chill November day in 
1674 the former part of the sentence was carried out 
in front of the City Hall — the old Stadt Huys on the 
Strand, at Coenties Slip. Disgraced as he was. Man- 
ning was by no means in despair, for his confidence 
in himself was unbounded, and his pockets were full 



MY SUMMER ACRE 37I 

of money. With serene philosophy he retired to his 
East River island and the luxurious home he had con- 
structed there, resolved to get as much enjoyment 
out of his physical life as was possible. Having mon- 
ey, he had friends, of course, and besides, the fame of 
his dinners went throughout the colony and pleaded 
his cause through the tender masculine stomach. 
His house became a synonyme of hospitality; his wit 
was a proverb, and he was pronounced the most ele- 
gant and agreeable of hosts. If he had been poor 
and penitent he would never have become popu- 
lar. " So long as thou doest well unto thyself," said 
wise old King David, " men will speak good of thee." 
Even in an earthly paradise the genial and unre- 
pentant old adventurer could not live forever, and 
when he died the island was bequeathed to his daugh- 
ter, who had married Robert Blackwell, to whom it 
owes the name it has borne for 200 years. The city 
became the purchaser of its 120 acres in 1828, paying 
for the island what would now be called the modest 
sum of $50,000, which was its full value then. It is 
a small municipality in itself, with a population of 
more than ten thousand persons. A glance and a 
thought suffice for Blackwell's, but the scene that 
breaks upon the eye beyond, where the river makes a 
sudden bend and reveals its swift waters rushing be- 
tween promontories clad in living green and crowned 
with luxuriant foliage, where the eyes cannot decide 
whether to most admire the charms of the land or 
the wave, and only knows that the beauty of one sets 
off the loveliness of the other, calls for the brush of 
the great American painter that is to be. In the full 
glory of the moonlight it is superb. 



372 MY SUMMER ACRE 

As the old colonel rose to go home, we two gray- 
beards started on a pilgrimage to the bedside of Mas- 
ter Felix Oldboy, Jr. My little boy loves every- 
thing that breathes and has legs, and after capturing 
two tiny mice had laboriously constructed a home 
for them for their protection from Neb. and Martha 
Washington, with a bay-window attachment in the 
shape of a revolving-wheel for their use. The old 
colonel had heard of it and came to me with a mutter 
of subterranean thunder: "Mice, indeed! Make a 
man of him and get him a gun !" and then trotted off 
and secretly gave the boy a quarter to buy wire with. 
We found him in his bed, rosy, placid, and sweet with 
sleep. On a chair close to his pillow was the house 
he had built for his mice, and from the wheel two 
pairs of eyes that seemed to be brilliant black beads 
were keeping watch upon their master. So he had 
always gone to bed with his newest treasures before 
his closing eyes or hugged to his heart. It was a 
picture I had never looked upon without being aware 
of the footsteps of approaching tears. I bent and 
kissed the child in his sleep, and the old colonel said 
that the light hurt his eyes, and, with a sudden " Good- 
night !" marched home. 

The mice awoke and preached a sermon to me as 
their pink toes twirled the wheel of wire. It is just 
so, I said, with man and his toys of the hour. If 
sleep be the brother of death, when we stretch our- 
selves out for a long night's rest under a coverlet of 
grasses, how pityingly will the dear Father look down 
upon the wreckage of hopes and plans strewed around 
our couch, glad in His loving heart that He can wake 
us to better things to-morrow ! 



MV SUMMER ACRE 373 



CHAPTER IV 

HAPPINESS IN A CANAL -BOAT — PULPIT CRITICISMS — THE STORY OF 
ward's ISLAND — IN THE DAYS OF THE REDCOATS 

My pet theory of acreage and happiness has re- 
ceived unexpected confirmation from a canal -boat. 
Ready as I am to maintain that one acre is enough 
for a home, and that its little circle of animal and 
vegetable life, its dreams and its realities, will suffice 
for a man's kingdom, I have been amazed to find that 
the horizon may be narrowed still further without fa- 
tal results. It is the revelation of a circus of tadpoles 
in a drop of water, and it came about as Master Felix 
and I were exploring the water-front towards Dead 
Man's Rock and wondering under what ledge bold 
Captain Kidd may have hidden his treasures, and 
whether the spook of the buccaneer, who was slain 
with a silver bullet and was said to haunt the Hen 
and Chickens, disappeared when that redoubtable ar- 
ray of rocks was blown into oblivion. At a dilapidated 
wharf just below Horn's Hook, still a grassy spot well 
grown with trees, was moored a weather-beaten canal- 
boat, laden with coal and vociferous with animated 
life. The venerable craft was the home of a wedded 
couple and their five children, and the seven inhabit- 
ants of the very small cabin and narrow ledges of 
deck seemed to be as happy a family as had come 
under my eyes for many a year. I watched the glee 



374 MY SUMMER ACRE 

with which the father and his three elder children — 
the eldest was a girl of twelve — fished a breakfast of 
tomcods and eels from the waters, while the mother 
was rocking the two younger ones to sleep down in 
the little cabin, and afterwards played softly to her- 
self on an old accordion. They had but $9 a week 
to be happy on, yet somehow they seemed to man- 
age it, and on Sunday they were bright and fresh in 
clean attire, and even the baby had new shoes. As I 
looked out at them from the rampart of my summer 
acre on the Sunday in which they had been paraded 
for inspection, I wondered" whether the uncouth cap- 
tain of the canal-boat would not by-and-by sail up the 
River of Life in better trim than many a fleet yacht 
that he envies as it sweeps by. Perhaps, however, it 
is an electric sympathy between a dilapidated canal- 
boat and a venerable mansion which has seen bet- 
ter days — and what marvellous yarns of land and sea 
they could exchange if acquainted and on speaking 
terms ! — which has set me to moralizing in this 
vein. 

The mention of Sunday reminds me to put it on 
record that we go to church in the morning of that 
day to old St. Paul's. I like it better than any of the 
modern Gothic temples. People speak of old Trinity, 
but it is a child in comparison with St. Paul's, which 
has fourscore years precedence in age. I have a 
friend living at the Astor House, the last scion of his 
family tree, who always marches solemnly out of 
church before the sermon. He says that he can 
stand the modern" Ja-fiddle-de-de-cob " style of sing- 
ing, which, like all old-fashioned admirers of Corona- 
tion, Brattle Street, and Mear, I abominate, but he 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



375 



does not think that 
more than one 
preacher in a gen- 
eration is quahfied 
to go up into the 
pulpit. 

Yet no modern 
critic of the Man- 
hattan pulpit can 
flatter himself that 
he is original. In 
1679 two members 
of the mystic sect, 
known as Laba- 
dists in Holland, 
made a voyage to 
the New Nether- 
lands to see what 
could be done in 
the way of securing 
proselytes. The 
men were no doubt 
suf^ciently relig- 
ious, but like many 
other good people 
they have left it on 
record that they 
were cranks of the 
first water. One 

Sunday they attended the old South Dutch Church in 
Garden Street, near Exchange Place, where they heard 
a sermon by Dominie Schaats, from Fort Orange, now 
Albany, and they wrote a criticism that was savage 




PULPIT, ST. PAUL S 



376 MY SUMMER ACRE 

enough for the most godless of newspapers. " He 
had a defect in the left eye," said the gentle Labadist, 
" and used such strange gestures and language that 
I never in all my life heard anything more misera- 
ble ; we could imagine nothing but that he had been 
drinking a little this morning." The next Sunday 
these wandering evangelists went to hear the English 
minister, whose services took place after the Dutch 
church was out, and whom they scored unmercifully. 
"A young man went into the pulpit and commenced 
preaching," the keeper of the journal wrote, " who 
thought he was performing wonders ; but he had a 
little book in his hand out of which he read his ser- 
mon — at which we could not be sufficiently aston- 
ished." I have heard remarks very much like the 
foregoing as a modern congregation has dispersed at 
the church door. 

In the journal of their voyagings these wandering 
evangelists set forth that the Haarlem Creek, at its 
juncture with the East River, forms the two Barents 
Islands (Ward's and Randall's islands), and that Great 
and Little Hell Gate are renowned for their exceed- 
ing frigh^fulness. To these designations succeeded 
the names of Great and Little Barn islands, which 
seems to have been imposed on them at the time 
when Wouter Van Twiller saw that the land was 
good and that his flocks and herds could multiply at 
leisure upon its luxuriant soil. Van Twiller was one 
of that class of mortals who believe themselves men 
of destiny. As Governor of the province he laid his 
taxes right and left, and claimed his prerogatives in 
all quarters. He paid no public or private debts, and 
when the sheriff ventured mildly to insist that his 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



377 



salary, then three years past due, should be paid, he 
had him arrested and clapped into jail. This gentle- 
man farmed the Barn Islands, and the province had 
no little difficulty in wresting them from his hands. 

There is a little island in the East River, off the 
foot of Ninty-third Street, where the boys who were 
my contemporaries used to go in swimming and find 
delight in the sandy beach, which was known in an- 
cient times as Mill Rock, and on later maps was put 
down as Leland Island, but which the late generation 
greeted joyfully as Sandy Gibson's Island. Who is 
there of us whom the ^reat leveller has spared at 
threescore who has not enjoyed a chowder at Sandy 
Gibson's homely house of refreshment, and often done 
execution among the striped bass for which those 
waters used to be famous? Ah! the fishing was fa- 
mous then. Bass of mammoth size and lobsters of in- 




MILL "ROCK 



378 MY SUMMER ACRE 

credible weight yearned to be caught, and the Harlem 
River flounders were a dainty for an epicure. The 
glory of the bass has departed, the flounder is almost 
a hermit, and the lobster coyly hides his green back 
from the sportsman, though by night the lights of the 
boaJ:s launched by hungry souls who bob for eels are 
seen rising and falling between the Hog's Back and 
Nigger Head. 

Of all the islands that lie scattered through the 
East River, Ward's Island is by ifar the most pictu- 
resque. Forty years ago it was a paradise ; to-day it 
is so beautiful as to attract the praise of all visitors. 
With its undulating surface, originally covered with 
dense woodlands, it was designed by nature for a park, 
and in the growth of the city it ought to have been 
reserved for that purpose. Van Twiller knew what 
he was about when he converted its two hundred and 
forty acres into a pasturage for his cattle, and the 
British knew what they were about when they occu- 
pied it in September, 1776, and made use of it to keep 
the patriots at Harlem in check. In maps of the last 
century it was known as Buchanan's Island, and Lord 
Howe's topographical engineers placed a house at the 
north-east corner and a still at the south. It speaks 
volumes for the careful delineator of the map that 
every still-house in or near New York is faithfully put 
down, and a bayonet dug up this week in the vicinity 
of the old distillery on this island is significant of the 
tastes of the British soldier. At one time 5000 Eng- 
lish and Hessian troops were camped on Ward's Isl- 
and, but there is no record that an American soldier 
ever set foot upon its soil. In the south-west corner 
of the island, under the shade of ten or twelve majes- 



MY SUMMER ACRE 379 

tic oaks still standing, there were visible once, and not 
many years ago, half a dozen graves. The mounds 
were distinctly marked, and a bowlder stood at the 
head of each. One stone was of such size and shape 
as seemingly to designate superior rank on the part of 
the sleeper. The inhabitants spoke of them as Ind- 
ian mounds, but it is more probable that the stones 
mark the graves of British soldiers, and that one of 
the number was an officer. The Indians never trou- 
bled themselves about headstones, and seldom sought 
the shade of trees for a grave, while instinct seemed 
to lead the white soldier to place his dead under the 
protecting arms of the oak or the elm. 

After the War of the Revolution the island was 
divided up into farm lands, and its uplands became 
famous for their crop of cherries and apples. But 
presently the rage of speculation seized upon the 
owners of the western shore, and in 1812 a cotton-mill 
of solid stone, 300 feet in length and three stories in 
height, was erected on the grounds now occupied by 
the commissioners of emigration, and everybody con- 
nected with the enterprise was warranted to become 
wealthy. A wooden bridge, wide enough to accom- 
modate a wagon, was thrown across the East River 
between One Hundred and Fourteenth Street and 
the north-western end of Ward's Island, on stone abut- 
ments, and a new era of prosperity was expected to 
begin for the old pasture grounds of Walter the 
Doubter. It was only a dream. The War of 1812 
came with its terrible embargo ; the mill could not 
get cotton from the South, and the enterprise failed. 
When the Emigration Board entered on its mission, 
forty years ago, it found use for the old mill, now de- 



380 MY SUMMER ACRE 

stroyed, but the bridge long before had gone to decay. 
Its stone abutments were removed after the steamer 
King Philip had been wrecked upon them. Our grand- 
fathers were a queer people. They did not make 
much of a fuss about bridging the East River, and 
left posterity to imagine that it had been the first to 
accomplish the feat. 

As I first remember Ward's Island it was clad with 
forests. Local historians speak of it as circular in 
shape, but it is really a rough square. Less than forty 
years ago it had great wood-clad bluffs on its eastern 
and western sides, and its dense woodlands were the 
haunt of rabbit and quail. The island is a picture to- 
night as I watch it from my eyrie below Horn's Hook. 
Amid its elms and wild-cherry-trees rise the minarets 
and towers of public buildings, and it were not dififi- 
cult to fancy it a ducal preserve. In its atmosphere 
are the more or less fragrant memories of many dy- 
nasties of the past, and pleasant recollections of picnics 
and parties of pleasure on the blufT that commanded 
the East River passage, and that have long since min- 
gled with the common dust. 



MY SUMMER ACRE 381 



CHAPTER V 

MANHATTAN BIRDS AND FISHES — FEATHERED DENIZENS OF HELL 
GATE — PRIMEVAL HAUNTS ON THE CITY's ISLANDS — A MATTER OF 
PISCATORIAL CONSCIENCE 

It has been an unending amusement to watch the 
birds this summer. If I had been able to keep ac- 
count of their number and variety, the catalogue 
would have surprised the unnoticing citizen who takes 
it for granted that the Island of Manhattan produces 
nothing but an interminable chorus of chattering 
sparrows. In the early spring the gulls were busy 
fishing in the waters of Hell Gate, and those brief 
strips of white cloud circling above the waves seemed 
at times to keep the whole air in motion. At the 
same time the crows were holding town meetings in 
the woods on Ward's and Randall's islands, finding 
their supper and breakfast on the marshes and sunken 
meadows, and in the forenoon flying in a great black 
cloud across the uplands of Astoria, to spend the day 
and take dinner somewhere on the shores of Long 
Island. When the gulls had disappeared, the blue- 
bird, whom Thoreau paints with a touch as having " a 
bit of sky on its back," appeared one day on a syringa 
bush in the garden, and the same week I heard the 
piping of a robin in the big cherry-tree. Then I lost 
the record of the procession. In my journeyings up 
and down the river I have seen the sleek maltese coat 



382 MY SUMMER ACRE 

of the cat-bird, and frequently caught his song ; have 
heard the bobolink and thrush tune their throats for 
a dash of melody, and kept still and watched until I 
could see the little chorister swaying on a bending 
mullein-stalk or a spear of sumach ; have listened to 
the blackbird's liquid notes as he darted through the 
golden haze of sunset and flashed back to my eye the 
splash of crimson that lights up his sable wing, and 
once in a while I have detected the black and orange 
bearings of the oriole, the brilliant uniform of a scar- 
let tanager, or the blue and white of the swift-darting 
kingfisher. In these late August evenings, as the sun 
sinks down to rest, I like to sit and watch the west- 
ward flight across the Gate of myriads of swallows. 
They skim across the waters by twos, by tens, by 
hundreds, dipping with a swift, seemingly uncertain 
flight, yet moving in a concert of regularity which is 
a marvel to the dull wits of man. The other evening, 
as I was returning from my rounds and passed a bit 
of open land by the river, I saw that the electric wires 
which traversed it were occupied by legions of swal- 
lows, as closely clustered together as soldiers on pa- 
rade, and as attentive, apparently, to the orders of a 
busy score of leaders. Presently the cries of the lead- 
ers ceased for a second, and the army took to the 
wing in battalions and brigades, and went through a 
series of manoeuvres that may have been intended, so 
far as I know, as a drill for the awkward squad of 
youngsters who were to take part for the first time 
in the annual autumn movements of the New York 
brigade of swallows. Every night there is the same 
flight across the waters and over the islands, probably 
to an eyrie in the Palisades of the Hudson, and every 



MY SUMMER ACRE 383 

night the same evolutions, as necessary to swallows, 
no doubt, as to the geese whose migrations in serried 
phalanx I used to admire last spring, attracted by the 
shrill cry of the leader, who rang his defiant trumpet 
high up in air, as if in recognition of the Manhattan 
he knew in his childhood and was compelled to pass 
by without pause in his age, and whom we shall see 
again presently on the return march from northern 
conquests. 

Of great fish-hawks I have seen half a dozen in these 
waters, and once, I am sure, it was an eagle that 
soared above the troubled tide to which he had long 
been a stranger. I could only wish him a safe and 
prosperous voyage, and immunity from the hands of 
those who are pleased to style themselves sportsmen. 
It was only yesterday that my breakfast was spoiled 
by reading a paragraph which stated that a rich man, 
who had once been to Congress, and aspired to be a 
politician, had shot an eagle, and intended to have 
him stuffed and presented to the Thingamy Associa- 
tion. Shot an eagle, indeed ! Why, after that eagle 
had lived for a century or two, and died of old age, he 
ought to have had a public funeral, and half a dozen 
aldermen for pall-bearers. Shot an eagle, indeed ! 

I have been making an antiquarian tour of Ward's 
Island in company with Master Felix, and as I cared 
nothing for hospitals, asylums, and other such crea- 
tions of the hand of improvement, I naturally inquired 
for the oldest inhabitant. He is an individual for 
whom I have always and everywhere a profound re- 
spect. His garrulity may become a bore sometimes 
and I may not feel bound to believe half of what he 
tells me, but my own years are increasing, and there 



384 MY SUMMER ACRE 

is a possibility that at no remote period I may be 
called to step into his shoes. When I asked who was 
the oldest inhabitant of Ward's Island, the answer 
was, " Captain Bill," but it was less easy to discover 
that his last name was Millner. I found him a man 
of ruddy complexion, smiling eyes, and ready speech, 
but, to my surprise, only thirty years of age. His fa- 
ther, " old Captain Bill," had run the first ferry to the 
island, half a century ago, and his son, who was born 
in the old cotton-mill, had succeeded to his father's 
business, and had learned from him the legends of the 
island and its inhabitants — the people who gave up 
their homes and disappeared when State and city took 
their lands for public purposes. Only two or three 
houses remain of those that were standing fifty years 
since, and these are so dilapidated that they must soon 
follow in the steps of their builders. Projected im- 
provements will wipe out the wild features of the 
landscape that yet remain, and there will be nothing 
for the antiquary to seize upon for a text here after 
the next century shall have begun its round. 

"Yes, I've seen lots of changes since I was a boy," 
said Captain Bill, as he came up from the State barge 
which he commands, and stood at the head of the 
emigration dock, under corpulent willows that were 
set out forty years ago, and are already giving signs 
of decay, " I remember when a bluff fifty feet high 
rose at the end of the island, down there opposite 
Mill Rock, and this side of it stood the Gibson home- 
stead. Both have gone, but you can see the cellar 
walls of the old house under the trees there, and so 
there have been changes all along the river-side, and 
if the old people were to come back they would not 






MY SUMMER ACRE 



385 



know the place." He could not spare the time to 
guide me, but directed me where to go in the search 
for antiquities, and left us to ramble at our leisure — 
the boy and I on the site of a buried Troy. Yet it 
was not a buried city we desired to find — least of all, 
such as lay at our feet. For, half a century ago, the 
City of New York purchased seventy acres here — fair- 
er and more picturesque than Greenwood — for a pot- 
ter's field. Its last place of pauper interment had 
been on the site of the reservoir at Fifth Avenue and 




RESERVOIR 



i 



Forty-second Street, and of Bryant Square, a site des- 
tined to become as aristocratic and exclusive for the 
living as had been the earlier potter's fields at Madi- 
son and Washington squares. The records say that 
100,000 bodies were removed to this island, and as 
many more were brought here afterwards, and still 
rest in their unmarked graves, giving signs of their 
presence only now and again when the spade and 
pickaxe are busy among them. They have a pleasant 
resting-place, and, on the whole, they sleep well. A 
25 



386 MY SUMMER ACRE 

millionaire could not find a more picturesque outlook 
than this slope that fronts on Hell Gate, if the trum- 
pet woke him to-morrow to do his final sum in arith- 
metic in figuring up the profit and loss of a lifetime. 

Our pilgrimage began at the south of the island, 
on a slope rising twenty feet above the swift tide, un- 
der a group of wild-cherry-trees, maple, and ailantus, 
amid an ancient garden overgrown with blackberry 
vines, and studded with juniper bushes, marked and 
guarded by an old apple-tree, near the ruined founda- 
tions of a house. It had been a handsome summer 
residence eighty years before, and when the great, 
bare slope to the eastward became the city's potter's 
field, this was the house of the keeper. Its ruins have 
forgotten the names of its former occupants. Ic does 
not take long in a city's lifetime to be forgotten. Not 
a hundred yards away a ploughshare turned up a huge 
slab of slate one morning in spring some eighteen 
years ago. The hind who held the plough was aston- 
ished to see a cavern yawning at his feet under the 
broken slab. He called his fellows, and they began 
to investigate. There was a flight of stone steps be- 
neath, and an arch of brick above them. Slowly, and 
in doubt and fear, they descended. It was a burial- 
vault, carefully built to hold ashes that were to be 
tenderly kept. Within were fragments of broken 
wood, a few bones, a rusty coffin -plate or two, the 
mute memorials of those who had lived happily in 
the sunshine above. But the lettering on the plates 
was indecipherable, and no one has been able to tell 
the name and story of those they were intended to 
keep in remembrance. 

Beyond the slope to the east lies a swamp, now 



MY SUMMER ACRE 387 

partly filled in, from which the last of half a dozen 
great cedars had just been cut. In the middle of this 
dreary stretch of forty acres is a swamp filled with 
reeds and cat-tails — the home of a vast colony of 
blackbirds. A quarter of a century since, this tract 
was known as " The Cedars," was covered with ever- 
greens and brambles, and in its by-ways the pedestrian 
could easily lose himself. It was the home of rabbits 
and quail, and the local sportsmen here found game 
to their heart's desire in November days. It seems 
incredible as I look out on the swampy waste, but it 
will seem still more like a distant tradition when the 
tract is covered with stately buildings, as another gen- 
eration will see it. At the foot of this part of the 
island the river current rages and swells over the reef 
known as Hog's Back, and around the dangerous 
promontory of bowlders called Nigger's Head. 

We took no interest in the city buildings and pub- 
lic institutions, but going by the banks of the East 
River, and past its rocky ramparts that repeat on a 
miniature scale the wildness of the New England 
shore, we came to an old house by the shore that 
faces Astoria, and is occupied by employes of the 
city. It was the home of the Halliker family, and a 
generation ago was kept as a public-house by the head 
of the family, who was known then to the world of 
fishermen as " Uncle John." In that day the East 
River at his door was famous for its striped bass. 
That huge, shy, beautiful, game fish, born and reared 
where the water is wildest, seeking his food in sunken 
meadows, and taking his ease on the bottoms of rocky 
channels, where the current races like a young giant, 
found in the guests of " Uncle John " the foemen he 



388 MY SUMMER ACRE 

delighted to meet and fight. Gamest of fish in the 
water, and most delicious of all fish on the table, Lit- 
tle and Great Hell Gate bred him to perfection, and 
the stories that veteran fishermen tell of monsters 
that were drawn out and tipped the scales at forty 
pounds would excite the derision of all who do not 
know that the oil-works at Hunter's Point, and the 
presence of countless fleets on the waters, have driven 
him almost out of existence. Fishermen still seek 
and find him here, and they tell me of fish weighing 
ten to fifteen pounds being caught this season, and 
that one of twice the latter weight was caught in Hell 
Gate last year. I can only say that I wish I had 
been the one to catch him. 

Beyond the Halliker house the massive stone foun- 
dations of another and larger house can be traced, 
and a stone wharf, overgrown with grass and shaded 
by willows, stretches out in front of it and is slowly 
falling to ruin. This was the locality of the old Red 
House, built long before the Revolution, and inhabited 
by the Lynes family. Beyond it, all the way to Lit- 
tle Hell Gate, and back to the Harlem River, used to 
stretch great orchards of apple, pear, and cherry trees. 
Most of the land is a waste meadow now, overgrown] 
with wild strawberries and daisies in summer, and we] 
find it just blossoming out in the rare brightness of j 
thirty acres of golden -rod. But, passing this waste: 
tract, we came to a place that was a delight to our] 
hearts and a perplexity to our feet. It was thirty 
acres of alders, wild-cherries, and elms, ending to the 
west in a huge grove of wild-cherry-trees that seemed] 
to have been set out by the hands of Druids in sym- 
metrical rings around bowlders of trap and little pools] 



MY SUMMER ACRE 389 

of water. Moss-grown and gnarled, those venerable 
trees could have told stories if they would — but they 
were impenetrably silent. 

Master Felix and I entered the little wood boldly, 
and found ourselves in the land of enchantment. The 
city was a thousand miles away; civilization had been 
left far out of sight. Under the alders we tramped, 
up to our knees in strange grasses and forest flowers, 
finding here a hedge of blackberry-vines laden with 
fruit, and there a little stream whose banks were 
hedged with elders and reeds ; seeing all about us 
beautiful bunches of ferns, and hearing everywhere 
above us the flitting of cat-birds, thrushes, and yellow- 
hammers. It was the little lad who suggested that 
we were Stanley's party, bound on exploration in the 
heart of Africa, and we could almost believe it, even 
with our eyes open. And when we emerged and tore 
our Avay to the water-side, through acres of bramble, 
it was still wild and uncanny to come upon the rush- 
ing tide careering over black rocks and sending up 
dashes of spray that recalled the sport of ocean. It 
is a pleasure to have seen, amid the woodlands of 
Ward's Island, and along its rocky, surf-swept shores, 
a last glimpse of primeval Manhattan. 



390 MY SUMMER ACRE 



CHAPTER VI 

THE BATTLE STORY OF THE EAST RIVER — MONUMENTS OF REVOLU- 
TIONARY DAYS — A DEFEAT AT RANDALI.'S ISLAND — THE PATRIOT- 
ISM THAT CLUSTERED ABOUT HELL GATE — CATCHING A SNOOK 

Perhaps it may be a weak ambition, but I should 
like to catch a snook before the season closes. I have 
not the least idea what sort of a fish the snook is, but 
the historian Van der Donck says that the waters of 
the East River abound in " snook, forrels, palings, 
dunns, and scolls," and I have fixed upon the most 
picturesque of the names, but have in vain questioned 
the lobster fishermen about his identity. The hon- 
est toilers of the wave look upon me, I find, with an 
eye of suspicion, not alone because of the unattain- 
able snook, but because I repeated to them Van der 
Donck's story about catching lobsters in these waters 
that were from five to six feet in length. They smile, 
shake their heads with an air of gentle incredulity, and 
say nothing. 

To whom are we to pin our faith, however, if not to 
the historian? Here is Peter Kalm, writing about 
New York a century after Van der Donck had gone 
to reap the reward of his veracity, who tells us that 
originally the honest Dutch fishermen sought for lob- 
sters in vain, and they were brought in great well- 
boats from New England. " But," he explains, " it 
happened that one of these boats broke in pieces near 



MY SUMMER ACRE 39I 

Hell Gate, about ten English miles from New York, 
and all the lobsters in it got off. Since that time they 
have so multiplied that they are now caught in the 
greatest abundance." It is mournful to think that the 
New Yorker of 1748 could play tricks upon travel- 
lers, but I am afraid that Mr. Kalm had fallen into 
the company of some amateur fishermen of that day. 
Yet it is delicious to read these musty volumes of 
travel, and to look through their eyes upon the Island 
of Manhattan and its surroundings. When, in the 
quiet of yesterday's sunset, Nellie said that she could 
fancy she heard the croaking of the frogs in the 
marshes beyond Horn's Hook, I took down the jour- 
nal of Peter Kalm and pointed out a paragraph which 
followed his description of the trees that gave " an 
agreeable shade " to the streets of the little city. 
" Besides numbers of birds which make these their 
abode," he writes, " there are likewise a kind of frogs 
which frequent them in great numbers in summer. 
They are very clamorous in the evening, and in a 
manner drown the singing of the birds. They fre- 
quently make such a noise that it is difficult for a per- 
son to make himself heard." Poor man, the mosqui- 
toes, which he always found troublesome, " did so 
disfigure " him at one time that he could not appear 
in public, and this may account for his prejudices on 
the subject of tree-toads and lobsters. 

We are always finding something new in or about 
our ancient homestead, and this time we have made 
an important discovery. It was the old colonel who 
set it on foot. We had been speaking of the islands 
that day to the north and east of us ; of how little the 
busy New Yorker recked of the orchards and meadow 



392 MY SUMMER ACRE 

lands, the stately willows and towering elms of Ran- 
dall's Island, and how general was the ignorance of its 
history ; wondering whence North and South Brother 
islands got their names, and talking over the days 
when Aunty Ackerson had her farm-house where the 
pest-houses of the city now stand, and raised her 
chickens under the shadow of Uncle Sam's light-house. 
As we paced up and down the path of the little bluff 
at the river's side in which the lawn ends, the old 
colonel stopped, pointed to an inequality in the 
ground, and said, " What's that ?" I told him that it 
was probably a part of an old terrace, " Terrace !" 
he shouted ; " and you are your grandfather's ghost, 
I presume. It's part of an earthwork, Felix." Mind- 
ful of the experience of the Pickwick Club in the case 
of " Bill Stumps, his Mark,'' I begged the colonel not 
to fire off the town pump. For be it known that at 
the announcement of peace in 1812, the good people 
of Hebron, in the land of steady habits, resolved to 
fire a salute, and to this end pulled up the town pump, 
had it banded with iron by the village blacksmith, 
loaded it up, and touched it off. The fragments of 
that unique piece of artillery were found in the next 
township, and its fate has been used as a Warning 
against vaulting ambition ever since. But the old 
colonel persisted, and we went to work and caught 
our " snook." We had been on both sides of earth- 
works in piping times of war, and could not be mis- 
taken in our conclusions. Besides, the record bears 
us out and shows that this acre was fighting ground in 
the days when redcoats wero-emblems of oppression. 

Though the East River has been the scene of but 
little fighting, it has yet witnessed vast military prep- 



MY SUMMER ACRE 393 

arations ; and in the withdrawal of Washington's army 
in the face of Howe's victorious legions, on the night 
of August 30, 1776, it saw one of those master move- 
ments which command the admiration of all military 
men. I sit on the back porch, and looking out upon 
the swift and turbulent waters, I try to recall the 
scenes of those days of yore, when a fleet of English 
ships rode up and down the river; when Howe sent 
troops in boats from Hallett's Point to occupy Bu- 
chanan's and Montressor's islands (as they were then 
called), and the scanty American garrisons evacuated 
the works along the front ; when Sir Henry Clinton, 
with 4000 men, crossed the river in flat- bottomed 
boats from the mouth of Newtown Creek and landed 
at Kip's Bay under cover of a rattling cannonade 
from ten ships of war ; 
when a fleet of thirty-seven 
war vessels and 400 trans- 
ports threatened annihila- 
tion to the meagre little 1- 

army with which Wash- ^tT^IHi ■Bl*li*^.j^ 
ington was retreating; "**^*^^Tli " '^^' 

when men were so plenti- " '^'--^.^d^^^^f^^- 

ful and cheap in their ca- 

^ KIP S HOUSE 

pacity as food for powder 

that soldiers from Hesse were hired at the rate of 
$34.50 for every one killed, with the understanding 
that three wounded men were to count as one dead 
hireling, in the settlement of accounts; when these fat- 
witted Hessians garrisoned this very water-front and 
the redoubt that began in my garden and reached out 
to the north and west ; when, after long years of occu- 
pation, the British flag was at length hauled down from 




394 MV SUMMER ACRE 

every bastion and rampart on the Island of Manhat- 
tan, and peace came to deck these earthworks with 
the dandelion and the daisy. 

Before the battle on Long Island, the American 
forces had fortified the most important points on the 
East River. A redoubt was cast up at Turtle Bay, 
between Forty- fourth and Forty -sixth streets; a 
breastwork at the shot -tower, foot of Fifty- fourth 
Street ; a battery on the bold bluff at Seventy-fourth 
Street ; another at the foot of Eighty-fifth Street ; and 
a strong work, known as Thompson's battery, upon the 
jutting promontory at the foot of Eighty-ninth Street, 
then called by the name of Horn's Hook, and after- 
wards Gracie's Point. This fortification commanded 
the mouth of Harlem River and the narrow channel 
at Hell Gate. A small work was also erected on 
Snake Hill, now Mount Morris, in the park of that 
name. These were the fortifications mapped out by 
the engineers ; but besides these there were earthworks 
erected to command every place at which a landing 
could be effected and intended as a protection for 
light field-pieces. The whole river-front bristled with 
the preparations for war, and in my boyhood the 
traces of the works were plainly visible at Turtle Bay, 
at Horn's Hook — then a beautifully shaded, grassy dell, 
and still retaining many of its old characteristics — and 
on the rocky and well-wooded bluffs that lay between. 
When the British took possession of the island, by a. 
simultaneous descent on Turtle Bay and Horn's Hook, 
they found that the works which the Americans had 
erected were excellently adapted to their own defence, 
and they occupied and strengthened them. They had 
found out their value by experiment ; for on the night 



MV SUMMER ACRE 



395 



after the battle of Long Island a forty-gun ship that 
had passed the lower batteries and sought anchorage 




in Turtle Bay 
had been hull- 
ed by round- 
shot from a field battery upon the high bank at Forty- .JF 
sixth Street, and had been compelled to seek shelter ih 
the channel east of Blackwell's Island. 

As a boy I can vividly recall the picturesqueness of 
the small rock- bound cove of the East River known 
as Turtle Bay. The banks, which were high and pre- 
cipitous, afforded a safe and snug harbor for small 
vessels. Here, in the year before the Declaration of 
Independence was signed, the British authorities had 
made a magazine of military stores, and these the 



396 



MV SUMMER ACRE 



Sons of Liberty, whose names are on New York's 
roll of patriotic honor, determined to seize. They 
knew the ground well, and laid their plans so as to in- 
sure success. Under the direction of John Lamb and 
Marinus Willett, a chosen band of twenty secured a 
sloop at a Connecticut village on the Sound, swept 
down stealthily through the perilous channels of Hell 
Gate in the twilight, and at midnight surprised and 
captured the guard at Turtle Bay and secured the 
stores. The old storehouse in which these valuable 
munitions of war were deposited was yet standing, 
in my boyhood, upon a grass -grown wharf on the 
southern side of the little bay. It is gone now, and 
the view from the rocky heights is changed, but the 
memory of brave men in the days wherein patriotism 
was cradled lingers there yet. 

This region saw other troublous times later on. In 

the summer and au- 
tumn of 1814, New 
York was thrown 
into a wild fever of 
excitement over a 
rumor that the Isl- 
and of Manhattan 
was to be invaded 
by a British army. 
The defences were 
few and insufficient. 
DeWitt Clinton, the 
mayor, issued a stir- 
ring address to the people to give their personal services 
to aid in the completion of the unfinished fortifications 
of the city. Four days later 3000 persons were at 




TURTLE BAY 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



397 




OLD STOREHOUSE AT TURTLE KAY 



work, and even the city newspapers suspended pub- 
lication in order to give a helping hand. The men 
who handled pick and spade were journeymen print- 
ers, college students, sons of Erin, members of Asbury 
African Church, pi- 
lots, masons, and 
many heads of man- 
ufacturing establish- 
ments. School-teach- 
ers and their pupils 
went out together to 
give their aid, and 
urchins who were too 
small to lift a spade 

carried earth on shingles to add their mite to the breast- 
works. Such was the magnificent display that New 
York made of its heart of fire; and when the works 
were completed, every lad who could carry a musket 
on his tender shoulders offered himself to be enlisted 

for the war. 

To guard against inva- 
sion by way of Long Island 
Sound, the fortifications 
built upon the East River 
during the Revolution were 
strengthened, and new ones 
were erected. Hell Gate and 
the channels of the East 
River were occupied by bat- 
teries, some of which were 
protected by towers. On 
Hallett's Point quite an extensive work was laid out, and 
named Fort Stevens. In its rear, on Lawrence Hill, 





TOWER AT HALLETT S POINT 



398 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



which commanded a wide sweep of land and water, a 
stone tower was erected, which stood there until re- 
cently, when the hill was levelled. On Mill Rock, 
where in late years Sandy Gibson built his rustic 
bower of refreshment for wearied fishermen, a very 
strong block-house and a powerful battery were placed, 
adding to the already sufificient terrors of rock and 
current. The fort at Horn's Hook was renewed ; re- 
doubts were built at Rhinelander Point and at the 
mouth of Harlem Creek ; and at Benson's, nearly on a 
line with the present Second Avenue, was a smaller 
earthwork intended to guard the mill-dam and fording- 
place on the creek. Intrenchments extended back 
to Benson's Creek, which then emptied into Harlem 




FORT STEVENS AND MILL ROCK 



River at the cove. At the head of Harlem Creek 
was the beginning of a parapet and ditch, which ran 
to Fort Clinton, on an elevated rock, now known as 
Mount St. Vincent, in the north-eastern part of Cen- 
tral Park. These defences bristled with the para- 
phernalia of war when completed, but the enemy 
never came to test them. The ploughshare and pick- 




KOKT CLINTON AND HARLEM CREEK 



axe have almost obliterated them and left but the 
merest fragment here and there by way of remem- 
brance. The roll-call of the Destroyer has been even 
more busy among the battalions of their defenders. 
Yet to-day I number among my friends, still erect 
and stalwart, though approaching the century mile- 
stone of his life, a gallant, white-haired gentleman 
who, in the ruddy strength of eighteen years, marched 
out under the command of Capt. Thomas Addis Em- 
met to do his devoir as a soldier of freedom. Emmet, 
who died in a court-room in the city while pleading 
an important case, lies buried under the shadow of old 
St, Paul's. 

We were talking the other day about the islands in 
the East River, the old colonel and I, and he ex- 
pressed his surprise that they had so long been a 
sealed book to him, as they yet were even to the 
New Yorker to whom they came as a territorial heri- 
tage. Did you ever hear, I inquired, that a battle 
had been fought upon one of them ? and he confessed 
that it had taken him eighty years to find it out. 
Then I told him the story of the engagement at Ran- 
dall's Island, which was known to military map-makers 
as Montressor's Island, on a September evening, in 



400 MY SUMMER ACRE 

1776.* On this island the British had placed a quan- 
tity of ammunition and stores, and the Americans de- 
termined, if possible, to seize them. A week after 
the brilliant and successful battle of Harlem Plains a 
battalion of 250 picked men, under command of Colo- 
nel Jackson, of Massachusetts, guided by Major Hen- 
ly, aide-de-camp to General Heath, made a descent 
upon the British at Montressor's Island, with the idea 
of giving the redcoats a surprise. It was a dark night, 
September 24th, and the plans were well laid, and 
would have been successful had not an impetuous 
soldier discharged his gun prematurely. As it was, 
the little column charged bravely against the earth- 
works that were defended by twice their numbers. 

* In the course of writing these papers, I find that the island to which 
we give the name Randall was known to our fathers as Randel's Island, 
and the weight of testimony seems to give weight to the latter designa- 
tion. Originally known as Little Barent's Island, this was corrupted 
into I,ittle Barn Island. When Elias Pipon bought it in 1732 he built 
a substantial house there, into which he removed his family, and chris- 
tened it Belle Isle. Fifteen years later George Talbot purchased the 
property, settled on it, and gave it his own name. In 1772 he sold the 
island to Capt. John Montressor, who resided there when the British 
troops occupied it, and on the maps of the period it is designated as 
Montressor Island. The island passed into the hands of Samuel Ogden 
in the spring of 1784, but he had no chance to change its name, for in 
the fall of the same year he sold it to Jonathan Randel for the sum of 
jC-4- It was from the executors of this gentleman that the city pur- 
chased the island for $50,000 in 1835, and the city has evidently sought 
to perpetuate the memory of its last owner, but has disagreed with 
him in the manner of spelling his name. However, it is the misfortune 
of a hero killed in battle to have his name misspelled in the despatches, 
and it is probably too late to do justice to the memory of Brother Jona- 
than. " My little dear," said the genial showman to the little girl who 
asked him which of the animals was a camel and which a hippopotamus, 
" you pays your money and you takes your choice." 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



401 



It was a magnificent but useless display of gallantry. 
The assaulting column was repulsed with the loss of 
twenty-two men — as many as had been slain on Har- 
lem Plains. Among the killed was Major Henly, who 
was shot at the head of his men and while cheering 
them .on. His body was recovered, carried back to 
the American camp, and buried by the side of Colonel 
Knowlton, hero of the engagement of the week be- 
fore, within the embankments of a redoubt on the 
lofty bank of the Harlem River. The prominent 
outlines of the earthworks on that wooded promon- 
tory and the old road down the steep hill to the cove 
beyond High Bridge have but very recently given 
way to the touch of time and improvement. It was 
a sad surprise to the Americans, this first and only 
battle on the islands of the East River. 

" The Americans were scooped, weren't they ?" in- 
quired Master Felix. Now, I hate slang of any sort, 




FORT FISH 



402 MY SUMMER ACRE 

and yet I have been forced more than once to admit 
that it is very expressive in the way of phraseology, 
and that much of it is very good English. So. as I 
meditated upon a proper method of rebuke, it occurred 
to me that the word might be of Dutch derivation, 
and turning to my library I became convinced that it 
was so. For a traveller from Holland, who passed 
through " the island of Manathans " 200 years ago, 
has left it on record that when he reached Nieu Haer- 
lem he stopped at the house of one Geresolveert (that 
is, his Christian name was " Resolved "), who was a 
scoup, or constable, of New Amsterdam. Evidently 
he was the right sort of man for his business, for the 
guileless traveller adds that his house was "constantly 
filled with people all the time, drinking for the most 
part an agreeable rum." The inference from his titu- 
lar designation is irresistible. It is plain that the 
scoup who gathered in offenders against the laws has 
enriched the dictionary of slang with one of its most 
expressive words. Master Felix is right. The Ameri- 
cans were scooped. 



MY SUMMER ACRE 403 



CHAPTER VII 

PANORAMA OF ANCIENT EAST RIVER HOMES — A LOW DUTCH FARM- 
HOUSE—AT TURTLE BAY FARM — THE GROVE IN THE Vi^OODS — OLD 
GRAVES AT THE WATER-SIDE. 

Nellie and the old colonel are walking in the 
flower-garden, with their heads close together, and as 
intent on each other as if they were a pair of lovers. 
They are often at the river-side, finding endless enter- 
tainment, apparently, in the beautiful panorama of the 
East River. The garden has flourished all summer 
under my daughter's dainty hands. Roses, holly- 
hocks, and lilies have ceased to bloom, but the beds 
are gay with marigolds, lady's-slippers, petunias, Indian- 
shot, cockscomb, mignonette, and the white, purple, 
and pink blossoms of the morning-glory. For my 
own pleasure I planted a cluster of sunflowers, and a 
score of sturdy disks of gold turn themselves to the 
monarch of day as he wheels across the sky, and sway 
with the winds. On the other side of the broad path, 
the corn, pumpkins, and tomatoes flourish luxuriantly, 
to the delight of black Diana's heart, and Nebuchad- 
nezzar and his kindred have made discovery of a bed 
of catnip, among whose fragrant stalks they roll and 
twist their lithe bodies with perhaps a dim remem- 
brance of ancestral tiger days in the jungle. 

As I look out upon my little kingdom of petunias 
and tomatoes the thought comes to me, that after 



404 MY SUMMER ACRE 

man had been created the first care of his Creator 
was to make a garden for him. " And the Lord God 
planted a garden," says the record. Then follows a 
glimpse of home and its comforts in the narration 
that " out of the ground " grew " every tree that is 
pleasant to the sight and good for food." It is a 
homely picture, perhaps, to be inserted by the side of 
the canvas on which chaos and the birth of a world 
are painted, but I understand it here with my garden 
spread before me, and can even fancy how lonely it 
must have been for Adam, with all its fresh, young 
beauty, when he had only his cats to keep him com- 
pany. Those figures coming towards me, the daugh- 
ter whose years have not yet reached a score and the 
friend and comrade whose summers are climbing up 
into five score, bear witness to my heart with every 
step that " it is not good that the man should be 
alone," and my tongue instinctively hails them. " What 
are you two plotting against — the peace of this com- 
monwealth ?" " Felix," said the old colonel, solemnly, 
" ask the cats. They have heard us, and you ought 
to know their language by this time." My daughter 
smiled mischievously, and said, " Do you remember 
what your grandmother used to tell you, when you 
asked what she was to give for dessert ?" I could but 
smile. The mention of my grandmother, the unfor- 
gotten guardian of the golden days of life's fairyland 
— the magic epoch which every man recalls with a 
touch of tender reverence in his voice as he utters the 
time-worn preface " when I was a boy," always brings 
a smile and peace. 

Once more I am in the old-fashioned dining-room, 
where my grandmother sits stately and dignified at 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



405 



the head of the table of poHshed mahogany, on which 
mats do service for table-cloth, under the service of 
priceless china ; where Abraham, the colored waiter, 
whose mother had been my grandmother's slave, 
stands behind her chair, erect as a grenadier; where 
an impatient urchin, whose great gray eyes and round- 
ed cheeks I have long ceased to see in the glass, is 
seated in torture on a straight-backed chair, which he 
abominates, and I know he has put a question, for 



is- 


a 


■iit 




% 




y 


a'' " '■ 


M 


"1 } \ 


/I 






MECHANICS BELL TOWER 



across the polished surface of the dark mahogany 
comes a dignified utterance which is strangely in con- 
trast with the love that I never failed to find in my 
grandmother's eyes — " Wait and see !" 

It was natural that we should fall into talk once 
more of our favorite theme, the beauties of the East 
River shore of the Island of Manhattan, and that the 



4o6 MY SUMMER ACRE 

old colonel and I should compare recollections of the 
days when it was peerless for scenery. The tourist 
now sees a succession of docks, broken here and there 
by rocks on which shanties have been thrown togeth- 
er, by the remains of a bluff, which recalls the terraces 
of a gentleman's country-seat in the past, by the 
ghosts of some old houses that were mansions of 
wealth in the past, or by a house and garden here and 
there, decayed but still genteel, bent upon keeping up 
appearances to the last. Some few landmarks still 
survive. The old mechanics' bell, which for nearly 
sixty years has rung out the hours of work and dinner 
over the ship-yards of the Eleventh Ward, and whose 
music is one of the recollections of my boyhood — re- 
calling days when I " played hookey" from school in 
order to witness a launch, and the clangor of the bell 
was a sort of brazen conscience that took the edge off 
my enjoyment — still stands and keeps up its warning 
of the flight of time, close by the East River, at the 
foot of Fourth Street. The old shot-tower yet looms 
up hard by the foot of Fifty-third Street, and people 
who wish to speak of the neighborhood begin as of 
yore with the preface : " You know where the old shot- 
tower is," as if everybody had known it from infancy. 
The rocky height known as Dead Man's Rock, that 
used to mark the beginning of Jones's Wood half a 
century ago, and that still has the same name, is there 
yet, but has become ignoble as the boundary of Battle 
Row, all too well known in police annals. And at 
Horn's Hook, opposite Hallett's Point, a group of 
great elms still sway in the breeze as they did in the 
days when Halleck and Paulding and Irving walked 
beneath their shade. 




THE WALTER FRANKLIN HOUSE 



The East River was by nature so much more pict- 
uresque than the Hudson, that the wealth and fashion 
of the little City of New York fixed upon it in the 
early part of the last century as a choice spot for 
country-seats. Pearl Street had become noted in the 
colony for its stately mansions, with gardens stretch- 
ing to the water-side. Then came the cluster of aris- 
tocratic dwellings at Franklin Square, the estate of 
Rutgers, the farms of the Bayards and De Lanceys, 
the seat of Marinus Willett at Corlear's Hook, the 
boweries of Peter Gerard Stuyvesant and his brother 
Nicholas Stuyvesant, and beyond these, for four miles 
up the river, the early part of this century witnessed 
the erection of a large number of elegant villas — like 
the Coster mansion near Thirtieth Street, on the river- 
bank, a stately edifice in the Grecian style of archi- 
tecture, which, in my boyhood, was the country resi- 
dence of Anson G. Phelps. But even as a boy I had 
more interest in the historic homes of the Kip and 



4o8 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



Beekman families. I remember both of these houses 
well. The Kip mansion, erected in 1655 by Jacobus 
Kip, was a large double structure, with three windows 
on one side of the door and two on the other, and 
with an ample wing besides. It was built of brick 
imported from Holland, and a stone coat of arms of 
the Kip family projected over the doorway. It was 
the oldest house on the island when it was demolished 
in 185 1, and Thirty-fifth Street and Second Avenue 
now pass over its site and give no sign of its exist- 
ence and story. Neither Oloffe, the dreamer, nor 
Heinrich Kip, whose great goose gun was the terror 
of prowling Indians, would now recognize the place 







JACOB HARSEN HOUSE 



MY SUMMER ACRE 409 

that even in my recollection was encompassed by- 
pleasant trees and sweet with grassy meadows that 
were reflected in the sparkling waters of the little bay. 
In Turtle Bay, half a mile above, the British ships 
of war used to find safe harbor in the storms of win- 
ter, and here Lord Howe found a convenient landing- 
place when he invaded the island and drove out " the 
rebels." On a knoll above the bay and overlooking 
it stood, near Forty-first Street, the summer residence 
of Francis Bayard Winthrop, whose estate was known 
as the Turtle Bay farm. There was a grist-mill on 
this place, fed by a brook that took its rise in the low- 
er part of the present Central Park. It was known, 
before the time of the Winthrops, as De Voor's mill- 
stream, and where it crossed Fifty-fourth Street, be- 
tween Second and Third avenues, just below " Old 
Cato's " on the Eastern post -road, there used to be 
a wooden bridge of which the Rev. Mr. Burnaby, a 
traveller in these parts in 1759, says: " In the way there 
is a bridge, about three miles distant from New York, 
where you always pass over as you return, called the 
Kissing Bridge, where it is a part of the etiquette to 
salute the lady who has put herself under your pro- 
tection." Mr. Burnaby speaks as if he had made trial 
of the etiquette of the day, and evidently he found it 
soothing if not pleasant, for he utters not a word of 
protest. The lady's opinion is not given, but she 
must have known the penalty, and in a rural scene like 
this rusticity is pardoned. The mill, the brook, the 
bridge, the fields silvered in the moonlight, the river a 
few rods away, a wilderness of woodlands at one side 
and the spires of the city rising three miles away — 
can it be that it is of the centre of a busy, bustling 



4IO MY SUMMER ACRE 

metropolis that these words are written and this pict- 
ure painted ?* 

There is one landmark of which I have not spoken, 
and that is yet the most notable of those that remain. 
Close by the old shot-tower stands a house that is a 
perfect specimen of the Dutch architecture of two 
centuries ago, and is probably the oldest building in 
the city. Long before the War of the Revolution it 
was known as the Spring Valley farm-house. Out- 



* In 1809, when the commissioners of streets and roads were laying 
out the plan of the new city above Houston, then North Street — a plan 
which, owing to the accuracy of the survey made by John Randel, Jr., 
their engineer, has stood the test of sixty years without revealing a mis- 
take — the Bowery was the principal road leading to Harlem and to 
King's Bridge. At the present Madison Square the Eastern post-road 
diverged from the Bloomingdale Road, crossing Fourth Avenue near 
Twenty-ninth Street, and passing through the hamlet known as Kip's 
Bay, or Kipsborough, which lay to the west of Third Avenue and ex- 
tended from Thirty-second to Thirty-eighth Street. Thence it swept 
towards the west, close to the Croton reservoir at Forty-second Street, 
made another bend, and crossed the road to Turtle Bay on the East Riv- 
er, at Third Avenue, between Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth streets. 
Sweeping still to the east, it crossed Second Avenue at Fifty-second 
Street, crossed it again at Sixty-second Street, and then followed the line 
of Third Avenue, passing Harsen's cross-road at Seventy -first Street. 
At Seventy-seventh Street and Third Avenue it crossed a small stream 
known in the last century as the Saw-Kill, and Mr. Randel assures us 
that the bridge which spanned this stream was known to all the young 
men and women of his day as the Kissing Bridge. But the English his- 
torian of the last century, and a clergymen to boot, assures us that the 
Kissing Bridge was the edifice of plank that crossed De Voor's mill- 
stream at Fifty-fourth Street, between Second and Third avenues, 
while a solemn Dutch historian of the seventeenth century, whose seri- 
ousness is not to be doubted, has placed it on record that the original 
and genuine Kissing Bridge was the one which crossed the stream that 
rippled down through Pearl Street from the Collect Pond and crossed 
the post-road — now Park Row — at the intersection of that street. 



vl^v' 








MY SUMiMER ACRE 4I3 

side, the walls are clapboarded, but an inside view dis- 
closes the massive stone and the huge cross-beams 
hewed out of solid oak. The grading of the street 
has made an additional story of the cellar, but origi- 
nally the house had a single story and attic, with long 
sloping roof and ample porches — the very ideal of 
Knickerbocker rest and luxury. A generation ago it 
was known as the Brevoort estate and house ; before 
that time it bore the names of Odel and Arden, but 
the builders belonged to the family who gave their 
name to the mill-stream, and whose name, like that of 
many another old Dutch family, is spelled in a differ- 
ent way each time that it is written, as thus : Duffore, 
Deffore, Devoor, Devore, and De Voor. The original 
grant of sixty acres was made by Sir Edmund An- 
dross to David DufTore in 1677, and the spelling of 
the name is changed in each successive deed on record. 
There is another venerable house standing on East 
Sixty-first Street, near Avenue A, which was com- 
pleted just before the Revolution as a summer resi- 
dence for Colonel William S. Smith, who had married 
the only daughter of Vice-President John Adams. It 
is emphatically a mansion, with two huge wings joined 
together by a portico in front and an extension in the 
rear, and its erection, together with an unfortunate 
speculation in East River real estate, bankrupted the 
owner before his work was completed. The records 
show that his possession of the thirty acres he had 
bought from Peter Prau Van Zandt was very brief. 
Much more of an old-time mansion was the Beekman 
House, which, until 1874, stood near the corner of Fifty- 
first Street and First Avenue. In its later days it had 
fallen from its high estate into shabby disrepute, but 




414 MY SUMMER ACRE 

neither the hand of time nor the presence of a troop 
of ragged tenants could destroy its dignity. About 
it clustered more historic recollections than were at- 
tached to any other house in the city, and the pen of 
Madame Riedesel, wife of the 
general who surrendered with 
Burgoyne, has immortalized it. 
Howe, Chester, and Carleton 
held possession of it more than 
seven years, and during that 
THE BEEKMAN GREENHOUSE ^[^q [^ ^^^s thc sccnc of thc trial 
and condemnation of Captain 
Nathan Hale, the martyr spy of the Revolution. Its 
greenhouse, in which the latter is said to have passed 
his last night on earth, and its extensive gardens, fell 
with all their glories twenty years before the old man- 
sion gave up the ghost, but I recall them every time 
the train whirls me over their grave. 

What a place of delight Jones's Wood used to be 
in the olden days ! It was the last fastness of the for- 
est primeval that once covered the rocky shores of the 
East River, and its wildness was almost savage. In 
the infant days of the colony it was the scene of tra- 
dition and fable, having been said to be a favorite re- 
sort of the pirates who dared the terrors of Hell Gate, 
and came here to land their treasures and hold their 
revels. Later, its shores were renowned for its fish- 
eries, and under the shadow of its rocky bluff and 
overhanging oaks the youth of a former generation 
cast their lines and waited for bites. The ninety acres 
which composed the wooded farm that was known in 
olden times as the Louvre passed through many hands 
until it came into the possession of the Provoost fam- 



MY SUMMER ACRE 417 

ily in 1742, and here they built and occupied for near- 
ly sixty years. Then they deeded their broad acres 
to Mr. John Jones, reserving the family vault and the 
right of way thereto. The old graves are there yet, 
but the ancient chapel has been transformed into a 
club-house, and the youthful athletes of to-day play 
leap-frog among the tombstones. 

It was the custom of the early settlers to have their 
dead laid to rest near the home of the living, and it 
was not until as late as 1802 that the family vault of 
the Bayards, at the foot of Bunker Hill — now at the 
crossing of Grand and Mulberry streets — was demol- 
ished. The home of the Provoosts, near the foot of 
Seventy -first Street, and the family vault, cut in a 
rocky knoll near by and covered with a marble slab, 
lay in neglected ruin long after the woods had become 
a favorite resort for picnic parties. The Provoosts 
were a remarkable family, connected as they were 
with some of the old historic families of Manhattan. 
Samuel Provoost, whose mother was daughter and 
heiress of old Harman Rutgers, was an assistant min- 
ister of old Trinity when the war broke out. Being a 
thorough American at heart, his preaching gave of- 
fence to the Tories and he was deprived of his posi- 
tion and sent into retirement, to emerge triumphantly 
afterwards as the first Bishop of New York and Presi- 
dent of Columbia College, his alma mater. 

A cousin of the bishop, David Provoost, better 
known in his day and generation as " Ready-money 
Provoost," was quite another character. A soldier in 
Washington's army, and wounded at the battle of 
Long Island, he became in after- years a noted smug- 
gler, having his chief stronghold at Hallett's Point, 
27 



4l8 MY SUMMER ACRE 

and successfully defying the officers of the law to the 
end of his wild career. He always had a reason for his 
faith, and as he had plenty of money, his reasons were 
listened to with the deference that wealth commands. 
He had fought against England and taxation, he said, 
only to be more pestered with custom-houses than 
ever. With an assumed roughness of diction, which 
was really foreign to his education or social position, 
he made his defence openly, and to a merchant who 
took him to task, said : " I'm for making an honest 
living by free -trade. There's Congress just been in- 
troducing a tariff, as they call it, and Madison, Carroll, 
and old Roger Sherman and all on 'em are voting for 
it, but by the Eternal, old * Ready Money ' will stand 
by his ' reserved rights,' as they call 'em away there in 
Virginny, and nullify the custom-house laws as long 
as the ' Pot ' boils in Hell Gate !" The fiery old smug- 
gler was laid to rest in the family vault, by the side of 
his wife, at the ripe age of ninety. Long afterwards 
the boys used to gather there and tell each other 
wonderful stories of the unearthly doings of the old 
man's ghost. Not one of them could have been per- 
suaded by all the ready money in the city to keep a 
night's vigil under the trees that overhung the lonely, 
desolate grave. Music, dance, and merrymaking must 
have exorcised it, however obstinate, long ago. 

The September sunshine, which through the last 
two weeks of drought has seemed to be filled with 
gold dust, has sprinkled the lawn with a fresh crop of 
dandelions. If this humble little flower were an in- 
mate of the greenhouse, it would adorn fair bosoms 
and win extravagant admiration, for its beauty is un- 
questioned. But it keeps on its way quietly, and per- 



MY SUMMER ACRE 419 

haps is happier in the lessons it teaches of home joys 
and fireside affections. It belongs to the home, and I 
have seen men pause and watch a dandelion that had 
strayed into a tiny square of grass in front of a city 
house, and was sure that I knew what was in their 
hearts.* I knew their thoughts had gone back to the 
farm on which they had been reared, the dooryard 
filled with dandelions, and the faces at the window 
that had watched their departing steps years before. 
It was this remembrance that, in a railroad cut across 
the river the other day, turned fifty faces towards a 
single yellow flower that had somehow taken root and 
blossomed in a rocky crevice twenty feet above the 
level of the tracks. Solitary amid the rocks, beautiful 
by its contrast to the rough stone, the little dandelion 
sat there and bloomed and sent out its reminders of 
home and fireside as no grand lily or radiant rose 
could have done. 

No, Diana. Tell the man that I do not want to 
have the grass cut. 

* Henry Ward Beecher wrote a characteristic paper upon precisely 
this subject — a single dandelion in a city front-yard. Mr. Beecher re- 
tained such liking for his own little essay that not long before his death 
he read it at one of the " Authors' Readings " in the Madison Square 
Theatre. — L. 



420 MY SUMMER ACRE 



CHAPTER VIII 

the hell gate colony — gllmpses of east river homes — st. 
James's church — the astor country-house — where irving 
wrote "astoria" — the home of archibald gracie — new 
york and its visitors 

The memory of my school-days haunts me even to 
the boundaries of my summer acre. For on the East 
River is a tract of land which covers eight or nine 
blocks, and extends from Seventy-sixth Street to be- 
yond Seventy-ninth Street on the water-front, which 
is the property of the New York Protestant Episcopal 
Public-school, which is the charter name of the Trinity 
School of my boyhood. Founded in 1709, it was par- 
tially endowed by Trinity Church, and received this 
bequest of valuable real estate in 1800 from Mr. Ba- 
ker, and in 1806 was incorporated by the Legislature. 
Taxes and assessments have swallowed up half of this 
land ; the school had no friends in the city govern- 
ment to protect its interests, and had to see its prop- 
erty forfeited while the City Fathers were lavishing 
lands and appropriations on the Church of Rome. In 
1832 the vestry of Trinity Church granted to the trus- 
tees, at a nominal rent, the lease of five lots of ground 
in Canal, Varick, and Grand streets, on which was 
erected a large brick school-house, that is still stand- 
ing, though the school has moved its headquarters 
three miles away. Here .the Rev. Dr. Morris, a ro- 
bust, scholarly, jolly graduate of Trinity College, 






MY SUMMER ACRE 421 

Dublin — strict in discipline, but foremost in our out- 
door sports — wielded the rod diligently for nearly five- 
and-twenty years. I have pleasant remembrances of 
his reign ; of wrestlings with Anthon's Homer and 
Greenleaf's Arithmetic ; of uproarious singing which 
sorely vexed Dr. Hodges, our musical instructor, and 
of learning to flourish birds and skeletons under Mr. 
Barlow, our elegant writing-master, who always ofifi- 
ciated in a dress-coat ; as well as of countless merry 
games of " Red Lion" and " How Many Miles?" in 
the playgrounds of the school. 

Our ancestors had a queer way of mixing up what 
we would now call the sacred and the profane. They 
went to church regularly, as a matter of duty, and 
quite as regularly they went to the theatre also. Gov- 
ernor and mayor had their canopied pews at the one 
place and their curtained boxes at the other, and no- 
body appeared to think the worse of them for going 
to either place. When a struggling congregation 
needed help to build a church, the authorities would 
order a lottery to raise money for the purpose, and 
when a charitable enterprise needed a helping hand 
they would secure it a benefit at the theatre. Only 
last week I discovered in the files of the New York 
Gazette, Revived in the Weekly Post-boy, for March 26, 
1750, an advertisement v/hich recited that "by his 
excellency's permission" — Admiral George Clinton 
was then governor of the colony—" a tragedy called 
'The Orphan; or, the Unhappy Marriage,' wrote by 
the ingenious Mr. Otway," would be performed the 
next evening at the theatre in Nassau Street for the 
benefit of the Episcopal. Charity- school, as Trinity 
School was first termed, whose school-house had been 



422 



WY SUMMER ACRE 



recently destroyed by fire. The advertisement, after 
giving the prices of admission, concludes with a de- 
lightful warning to the gilded youth of the period : 
" To begin precisely at half an hour after 6 o'clock, 
and no person to be admitted behind the scenes." 

Just below the school lands were the summer resi- 
dences of Richard Riker and John Lawrence. The 
former was for nearly half a century a well-known 
character in the city. In his dashing youth " Dickey " 
Riker was the mirror of fashion ; in his limping old 
age he was known to the legal fraternity as " Old 
Pecooler," from his habit, as recorder, of beginning 
almost every charge to his juries with the remark that 
there was something " very pecooler," as he phrased 
the word peculiar, about the case in question. With 
the exception of two years, Mr. Riker filled the ofifice 
of recorder from 1815 to 1838. His pretty cottage on 
the East River, whose broad veranda, shaded by oaks 



.>.->'-! 



?Mt, -^vJ-Swk, 








•\^peilf<y-'^ * __ 




RICHARD RIKER S HOUSE 



MY SUMMER ACRE 423 

on either side, was then a bower of rest and lovely 
scenery, no longer exists, for Seventy -fourth Street 
passes directly over its site and through the grassy 
knoll on which it was situated. 

Some of the old residences, frame structures that 
were erected seventy or eighty years ago, still stand, 
though their surroundings are all changed, and it 
seems a pity that they have survived the destruction 
of the green fields and graceful bits of forest that sur- 
rounded them. Ancient Ash Brook — as the old Law- 
rence mansion at the foot of East Twenty-fifth Street 
used to be called — the home in my boyhood of John 
Lawrence, merchant and man of affairs, continues to 
defy Time's ravages, and is yet embowered in a lovely 
garden that occupies nearly a city block, shut in by a 
high brick wall. The pretty little stream long known 
as Ash Brook has been stamped out by pavements, 
but there are some oaks still standing there that can 
recall the music of its ripples. At Eighty -second 
Street and Avenue B is the country residence of 
Joshua Jones, a long wooden structure of olden fash- 
ion, with a gallery on the roof, and the usual broad 
verandas in front and rear. Two blocks above, the 
homestead of the Schermerhorn family, a more ambi- 
tious structure of two stories and a half, surmounted 
by a cupola, still looks out towards Hell Gate and the 
islands. The family owned at one time considerable 
real estate in this section, and several houses v/ere 
built by and for the younger members. Their neigh- 
bors were the Jones families, the Winthrops, Duns- 
combs, Kings, John Wilkes, a lawyer, whose city house 
was in Wall Street, and who was a relative of the fa- 
mous and eccentric English Member of Parliament 



424 MY SUMMER ACRE 

of that name ; Josiah Ogden Hoffman, Charles King, 
and John N. Grenzebach, whose father's grocery store 
on Park Row had been an ancient city landmark. 
The latter's estate was at Third Avenue and Seventy- 
fifth Street, and the house was an ambitious frame 
structure of three stories, which for nearly half a cen- 
tury attracted notice as a relic of a luxurious period 
in the past. 

The little colony of citizens who had their country 
places hereabouts were mainly Episcopalians, and in 
the summers, which were unduly prolonged for them 
by yellow -fever visitations, they felt the need of a 
church. When, in 1807, the city corporation thought 
of improving their common lands, which then extend- 
ed from about Forty-fifth to Eighty-sixth Street, they 
laid out a park between Sixty-sixth and Sixty-ninth 
streets and Third and Fourth avenues, on whose 
grounds now stand the Seventh Regiment Armory, 
the Normal School, and several hospitals, and called 
it Hamilton Square. A plot of land at Lexington 
Avenue and Sixty- ninth Street was marked, on the 
map then made, as "a piece of land intended for a 
church or academy." For this lot application was 
made to the authorities, and the vestry of Trinity 
Church was petitioned for assistance. Both requests 
were granted, the common council giving the land, 
and Trinity Church a gift of $3000. The church, af- 
terwards known as St. James's, Yorkville, was conse- 
crated in 1 8 10 by Bishop Moore. It was not much 
of a building, architecturally speaking. Indeed, it 
was a plain wooden structure, of the house-carpenter 
style of architecture, surmounted by a little pepper- 
box sort of a steeple. But what mattered its style? 



MY SUMMER ACRE 425 

It had no rival within sight. For fifteen years after 
it was finished Yorkville had no existence, not a house 
having been built on the common lands. It was a 
country church, amid outlying farm lands. Situat- 
ed on the summit of Hamilton Hill, it was a land- 
mark for miles around. A road crossed the island just 
above it, at Seventy-second Street, known as Harsen's 
Road, and through this rural lane came the rector 
of St. Michael's, Bloomingdale, to preach on summer 
mornings, when the sacred edifice was beset on all 
sides by the carriages of the rich and the wagons of 
humbler folk. For thirty years there was only sum- 
mer preaching in this old country church, and then 
the town had grown up about it, and it threw away 
its Bloomingdale crutch and walked alone. Park, 
church, and farms have been obliterated, and yet I 
turn from the river's side and look westwardly, and 
fancy that I can once more see the familiar old pep- 
per-box spire which I was taught in boyhood to rev- 
erence. The hand of the destroyer who wields the 
pick is mighty, but more potent still is the slight, gen- 
tle touch of memory. 

The first vestry of the church was selected in 1810. 
The wardens were Peter Schermerhorn and Francis 
B. Winthrop. The vestrymen were David Mumford, 
John Mason, John G. Bogert, Peter Schermerhorn, 
William H. Jephson, John Jones, John H. Talman, 
Charles King ; and the inspectors of election were 
Joshua Jones, Martin Hoffman, and Isaac Jones. In 
1843, when the church first called a minister of its 
own, the wardens were Joseph Foulke and Peter 
Schermerhorn, and among the vestrymen were Thom- 
as Addis Emmet, John H. Riker, and Rufus Prime. 



426 MY SUMMER ACRE 

Perhaps it would be hardly proper in this connection 
to speak of those venerable men as the Hell Gate col- 
onists, but such they were indeed, attracted to this 
section of the Island of Manhattan by its marvellous 
and diversified beauties of land and water. They 
built their homes here, erected their family tombs, 
set the light of their church on a hill, and planned for 
the peaceful occupation of generations, little dream- 
ing that before the century closed their homes would 
be swept away by a tidal wave of population, and 
their own bones torn out of the sod and trotted away 
to some crowded city of the dead. 
\ T4)^re is but one New York. <I have visited London 
at my leisure, and have made my home in Paris ; have 
seen the tropical beauty of South American cities, and 
the Arctic glory of the old French towns in Canada ; 
but I want to put it on record that there is only one 
New York, and that it is peerless. No other city pos- 
sesses natural beauty to compare with it. 

In an article written for the Talisman in 1828, Mr. 
Gulian C. Verplanck takes the ground that New York 
was even then one of the pivots of creation. " It is a 
sort of thoroughfare," he says, " a spot where almost 
every remarkable character is seen once in the course 
of his life, and almost every remarkable thing once in 
the course of its existence. Does anybody in that 
city want to see a friend living in Mexico, or Calcutta, 
or China, all that he has to do is to reside quietly in 
New York and he will be gratified. The object in 
search of which he might compass half the globe will 
present itself in his daily walk when he least expects 
it." With the exception of Mont Blanc, Westminster 
Abbey, and the Emperor of China, this is probably 




ATLANTIC GARDEN, No. 9 BROADWAY 



true. Here Jonathan Edwards, Whitefield, and the 
apostoHc Tennant have preached, and Oglethorpe and 
Count Zinzendorf have exhorted ; here Washington 
has dwelt in state, and Jefferson has kept his quiet 
house on Cedar Street ; here Talleyrand has displayed 
his club-foot and his power to be sarcastic, even with 
children; here lived for a time Billaud de Varennes, 
who led the French mob at St. Antoine ; and here 
Count Auguste Louis de Singeron, one of the gallant 
band of officers who defended the King on that Au- 
gust night when the Tuileries ran blood, sold cake and 
candies to the children ; here King William IV., of 
England, disported himself as a midshipman, learning 
to skate on the Collect Pond, and King Louis Philippe, 
of France, taught school in the old Somerindyke man- 
sion on upper Broadway ; here Volney, Cobbett, Tom 
Moore, Murat, the Bonapartes, and heroes and acade- 



428 MY SUMMER ACRE 

micians enough to fill a volume with their achieve- 
ments and set society by the ears have visited or 
dwelt in tents. The procession has been moving on 
ever since. I have seen the future King of England 
on our streets; slender, fiery Don Carlos ; fierce Henri 
de Rochefort ; the jovial but darksome " King of the 
Cannibal Islands," whose august name Kalakaua was 
turned into "Calico" by irreverent urchins; several 
exiled Haytian monarchs, more or less dark of aspect ; 
General Paez, and a long succession of South Ameri- 
can soldiers and rulers ; and even his august autocracy, 
the Shah of Persia, has recently remarked in confi- 
dence that he would like to visit New York, and would 
do it but for the fear that his distinguished friends 
who hold the helm in Russia and England might take 
advantage of his absence to dismember his kingdom. 

In a letter written by Washington Irving, from 
Paris, in 1824, to Henry Brevoort, he speaks of his in- 
tense delight at having received a visit from Domi- 
nick Lynch, and having a long chat over old times 
and old associates. They talked about New York 
until he became homesick. "■ I do not know," he 
says, " whether it is the force of early impressions and 
associations, but there is a charm about that little 
spot of earth, the beautiful city and its environs, that 
has a perfect spell over my imagination. The bay, 
the rivers and their wild and woody shores, the haunts 
of my boyhood on land and water, absolutely have a 
witchery over my mind." Then he rises to a climax 
which should be read in the hearing of American col- 
onies abroad, and writes : " I thank God for having 
been born in such a beautiful place among such beau- 
tiful scenery ; I am convinced that I owe a vast deal 



MY SUMMER ACRE 429 

of what is good and pleasant in my nature to the cir- 
cumstance," I close my eyes, shut the book, and try 
to fancy Washington Irving, as I saw him in his hon- 
ored old age, moving about these old-fashioned rooms. 
It is one of the legends of the house that in the ear- 
lier years of his fame he was many times a guest at 
the table of its hospitable owner, and that he knew 
the family well his letters attest. If I were the own- 
er I would rather that the feet of Washington Irving 
had crossed my threshold than to have numbered 
among my visitors any or all of the great men I have 
mentioned. 

To me the whole atmosphere of Hell Gate is redo- 
lent with the memory of Washington Irving. As 
boy and man I know that he walked under the trees 
that still remain by the side of the river, and here he 
dreamed and wrote of ancient Dutch voyagers, of hob- 
goblins and ghosts of pirates, and likewise of every- 
thing that was sweet and lovely in nature. When he 
wished to retire from the clamor and bustle of the 
City of New York, where fashion then had pushed its 
way far out into the purlieus of Bleecker and Great 
Jones streets, and was even dreaming of turning the 
wild w'aste at Fourteenth Street, that stretched irregu- 
larly between the Bloomingdale Road and the Bowery 
(as it was then known) into Union Square, he came 
up to the summer home of the elder John Jacob Astor, 
on Hell Gate, for rest from what he called the " irk- 
some fagging of my pen," or for planning and writing 
new books, and, as in every place which he visited, he 
has left here the pleasant impress of his personality. 

It was the fashion of his day to look upon Mr, 
Astor as a man whose only object of devotion in life 



43^ MY SUMMER ACRE 

was the mighty dollar. He had amassed a fortune 
which was considered colossal, and there were many 
to envy him and to detract from his credit ; many 
who chose to forget that had not John Jacob Astor 
and Steghen Girard come forward with their dollars 
to help the country in its last war with Great Britain, 
there would have been no powder for American can- 
non and no balls in American muskets. But most 
of all, I have honored Mr. Astor for the reason that 
Washington Irving esteemed him. It is a compara- 
tively easy matter to bequeath a slice of one's fortune 
to found a public library, but a thousand times more 
difficult to acquire the friendship of such a man as 
Irving; and that the latter had a cordial admiration 
for the great merchant is evinced in many of his let- 
ters. It was because of the personal cordiality which 
existed between them that Irving found it so pleasant 
to be a guest for weeks at a time at his country-seat, 
as well as to be a frequent and familiar visitor at Mr. 
Astor's city home, which then stood on Broadway, 
upon the site of the present Astor House. 

In a letter to his brother Peter, bearing date Sep- 
tember 25, 1835, Washington Irving writes: " For up- 
ward of a month past I have been quartered at Hell 
Gate with Mr. Astor, and I have not had so quiet and 
delightful a nest since I have been in America. He 
has a spacious and well-built house, with a lawn in 
front of it and a garden in the rear. The lawn sweeps 
down to the water-edge, and full in front of the house 
is the little strait of Hell Gate, which forms a con- 
stantly moving picture." Here Mr. Astor kept what 
his guest calls " a kind of bachelor hall," the only other 
member of the family being his grandson, Charles 



MY SUMMER ACRE 43I 

Astor Bristed, then a boy of fourteen, who afterwards 
inherited the place. Later, Mr. Irving goes on to say: 
" I cannot tell you how sweet and delightful I have 
found this retreat ; pure air, agreeable scenery, a spa- 
cious house, profound quiet, and perfect connmand of 
my time and self. The consequence is that I have 
written more since I have been here than I have ever 
done in the same space of time." Two weeks later 
he writes to the same brother that he has " promised 
old Mr. Astor to return to his rural retreat at Hell 
Gate, and shall go out there to-day." In another let- 
ter, written on Christmas Day, he says that Mr. Astor 
does everything in his power to render his stay agree- 
able, " or rather, he takes the true way, by leaving us 
complete masters of ourselves and our time." The 
reason he uses the plural number is that his nephew, 
Pierre M. Irving, was with him, engaged under his 
supervision in digging out the material for his great 
work Astoria, which had been taken up at Mr. Astor's 
request and prepared in his Hell Gate mansion for 
publication. The early part of the next year, 1836, 
found Mr. Irving still hard at work in " that admira- 
ble place for literary occupation," Mr. Astor's " coun- 
try retreat opposite Hell Gate," and there he was still 
busy in February, " giving my last handling to the 
Astor work. It is this handling which, like the 
touching and retouching of a picture, gives the rich- 
est effects." And it was while he was giving this ex- 
quisite setting to his rare and masterly pictures of 
wild life on the Pacific that the great American mas- 
ter of letters was from time to time a welcome visitor 
across this worn and faded threshold. 

Other homes in the neighborhood made him wel- 



432 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



come, as they had done before. During the War of 
1 8 12, in which, by- the- way, Washington Irving did 
service on the staff of Governor Tompkins, and earned 
the truly American title of colonel, which he made 
haste to drop, he was a guest at the rural home of 
the Lefferts, near the present Ninety-first Street and 










'^.1 




THE GRACIE HOUSE 



Third Avenue — a house which is still standing. In 
January, i8i3,he writes: "Mr. Gracie has moved into 
his new house, and I find a very warm reception at 
the fireside. Their country-seat was one of my strong- 



MY SUMxMER ACRE 433 

holds last summer, as I lived in its vicinity. It is a 
charming, warm-hearted family, and the old gentleman 
has the soul of a prince." Could praise go further ? 
Yet it was deserved, I am sure. Archibald Gracie 
was one of New York's great merchants, and Oliver 
Wolcott said of him: " He was one of the excellent 
of the earth — actively liberal, intelligent, seeking and 
rejoicing in occasions to do good." Josiah Ouincy, 
who was entertained by him at his country-seat on 
the East River, opposite Hell Gate, writes of the 
place as beautiful beyond description, and says: "The 
mansion is elegant, in the modern style, and the grounds 
laid out with taste in gardens." The house stood — 
and still stands in an excellent state of preservation — 
on the East River, at Horn's Hook (sometimes called 
Grade's Point and Rhinelander's Point), at the foot of 
Eighty-ninth Street. It still looks out upon the whirl- 
ing, foaming waters of Hell Gate ; its lawn still stretch- 
es to the river; huge elms yet shade its ample porches, 
and it is a landmark yet to those who navigate the 
three channels of the Gate ; but it long since passed into 
the hands of strangers, and its present possessors may 
not know or care what ghosts of footsteps — all unfor- 
gotten by fame or tradition — still linger regretfully 
about its halls. 

I hear at the door the step of the old colonel, and 
I know he will drag me from my books to take what 
he calls the medicine of fresh air and sunshine. He 
asks me what I have been writing about, and when I 
have read him a page or two, he exclaims, with charm- 
ing frankness, " Nonsense ; why don't you tell of Gen- 
eral Scott's dinner at the Gracie homestead, and of 
Commodore Chauncey's country-box just above here, 



43-1- MY SUMMER ACRE 

and put a little soldiering and fighting in your letters. 
I don't think much of steel-pens or goose-quills, either, 
for that matter. If I had sixteen sons I would put 
them all into the army — every one, sir — and make 
them fight for bread and their country. I would, bj^ 
— by Nebuchadnezzar, sir !" 

I thanked Nebuchadnezzar for coming in at this 
crisis and purring his approval of my visitor, but I 
could not resist the chance to fire a shot. As he sat 
down and took the cat in his lap and stroked its yel- 
low coat, and did it gently with a touch that showed 
a tender and deep humanity in his heart, I said, 
" What a pity that your grandson should be a parson. 
I must warn Nellie against putting her trust in any- 
thing but a soldier!" 

Nellie had entered the room without my seeing her, 
and, as she laid her hand upon his arm, her face was 
rosy and his was scarlet. He put the cat down gen- 
tly, lifted a wrathful finger, and, with time only to ex- 
claim, " Felix, I — " was conveyed away in safety by 
my daughter. 

The cat and I had the laugh to ourselves. Nellie 
and the old colonel think that I know nothing about 
the young minister and her ladyship. I would like to 
question Nebuchadnezzar, as I think he knows more 
about it than I can guess. 



MY SUMMER ACRE 435 



CHAPTER IX 

UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF LIFE — THE OLD POST-ROAD AND ITS HELL 
GATE BRANCHES — HOMES OF MERCHANT PRINCES — MANHATTAN'S 
BIGGEST TREE 

The old colonel advises me to buy a tub and sun 
myself in it during these early days of autumn. He 
found me this morning a perplexed philosopher. I 
had been troubled by the unsolved problems of life. 
My opposite neighbor, name and nativity unknown, 
who lives in a shabby little frame-house, always runs 
to his door when he hears the sturdy step of Bob, the 
postman, turn the corner, and hails him as he passes 
with an inquiry for letters. Nobody thinks of writing 
to him. He has had but one letter this year, and yet 
he would as soon think of omitting his breakfast as of 
letting this ceremonial of inquiry pass. Why he does 
it is a problem which puzzles me. I put it to the 
postman, and he figured upon it thoughtfully for a 
moment and then gave it up ; but he also gave it to 
me as a bit of his experience that the people on his 
route who seldom received a letter were always the 
most anxious to learn whether the mail had brought 
anything for them. 

My cheery friend, the postman, found me sitting on 
the front porch, under the shade of the honeysuckles 
that threw a shadow on half the porch and have 
clambered up to the gallery on the roof, and singled 
out one missive of those that he handed me, and said, 



436 MY SUMMER ACRE 

" I have brought you a real letter, and no mistake, this 
time." It was even so. Four sheets of letter-paper, 
closely written, and from a friend who is the busiest 
man of my acquaintance, though his years are almost 
threescore and ten. It was a charming epistle, full of 
news, and pervaded by his own personality. But he 
also gave me a problem to solve. He had been able 
to take a vacation of but three weeks, and on his re- 
turn it had taken him three weeks more to put his 
books and papers to rights again. Why is it so ? he 
asked me ; and then he made the assertion that if he 
had been absent for three months it would have been 
the work of three months afterwards to get everything 
settled down again, and he left me to puzzle over the 
problem. Rejecting the tub idea, the old colonel and 
I took our chairs out upon the back porch, with the 
swift waters leaping and sparkling at our feet, twenty 
feet below the top of the bluff, and a late cat-bird call- 
ing in the branches overhead, and talked over the fact 
that we had learned so much and knew so little. We 
spoke, as we so often do now, of our childhood, of our 
school-days, and our playmates ; thinking silently as 
we spoke, perhaps, of another childhood, a school yet 
to come, and renewed companionships that had been 
broken in the past. Our talk recalled a picture of the 
past that had become almost forgotten. 

It was of my grandmother — the picture in my li- 
brary of a dainty maiden in clinging robes and baby 
waist, and with great sunny curls heaped high above 
her unvvrinkled forehead, is her portrait painted in the 
day of her belleship — in the later years of her life, 
when her cap was her care and her knitting was her 
comfort. " Felix," she said, one day, as she stopped 




HELL GATE FERRY 



MY SUMMER ACRE 439 

knitting to smooth down the long lace lappets of her 
cap, " I have been thinking while you were at school 
how little we learn here in threescore years, and yet 
when we are children, we expect to learn everything 
by the time we are grown up. But we'll know it all 
by-and-by, that's one comfort, and for a little while it 
doesn't signify." 

It was in the days when young ladies were habited 
as my grandmother's portrait presents them, and gen- 
tlemen of fashion wore the collars of their coats tucked 
up under their ears and swathed their necks in volumi- 
nous silk or muslin neckerchiefs, when among the el- 
ders the queue was going slowly out of fashion, and 
knee-breeches struggled to hold their own against the 
more democratic trousers, that the glory of the Hell 
Gate colony was at its height. The members had 
their stately homes in the city, to and from which 
they travelled in the chaise, or lumbering coach of 
the period, or, as the gentlemen usually preferred, on 
horseback. 

At the time of which I write the Hell Gate Ferry 
was at the foot of Eighty-sixth Street, opposite the 
extreme northern end of Blackwell's Island, and there 
was a road to it that started from a point just south 
of Eighty-third Street. Below this, at Seventy-ninth 
Street and Third Avenue, was what was known as 
Odellville in my boyhood. It answered to the defini- 
tion of a point, being without position or magnitude. 
West of the road was Odell's grocery store — a two- 
story frame building, which yet stands, though hum- 
bled by its brick and stone neighbors. The cottage 
of " Granny " Gates, a niece of Gen. Horatio Gates, 
200 feet distant, and on the other side of the post-road 



440 MY SUMMER ACRE 

which here passes between Second and Third avenues, 
has been swept away ; but Pye's Folly, a row of brick 
houses erected thirty years before this time, which 
proved a ruinous investment, has survived its project- 
or, though it has grown aged and shabby of aspect. 
Connected with the main roadway to the ferry were a 
number of branch roads, mostly shaded by rows of 
trees, among which the Lombardy poplar was popu- 
lar, which led to the country-seats of the gentlemen 
who always spoke of their places as being on Hell 
Gate. Commodore Chauncey's villa was south of 
Eighty-fifth Street, and between Avenues A and B; 
John Jacob Astor's on the south side of Eighty-eighth 
Street, his farm extending between Avenues A and B 
and Eighty-seventh and Eighty-ninth streets ; Archi- 
bald Gracie's house was east of Avenue B, and north 
of Eighty-eighth Street ; Nathaniel Prime's comforta- 
ble homestead lay north of Eighty-ninth Street, and 
west of Avenue A; and the farm-house of William 
Rhinelander stood north of Ninety-first Street, over- 
looking the bay, which then swept far in shore from 
Horn's Hook, and looking out upon Mill Rock and 
the Frying Pan. 

Two of these houses yet remain, and yesterday I 
made a pilgrimage to their thresholds, and then sought 
the sites of those others which had been swept to de- 
struction by the tidal wave of improvement. The 
besom of the speculator is implacable. In a few 
weeks the old house in which I live will be torn down, 
and modern bricks fashioned into a tenement -house 
will replace it. When I went into Riverside Park 
yesterday one of its guardians told me that the old 
brick mansion which stands in its enclosure, note- 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



441 



worthy for its great hall ending in an entrance- door 
at either side, is doomed. Thomas Addis Emmet 
used to spend his summers here, and with Wash- 
ington Irving was 
a frequent guest 
at the house of 
Archibald Gracie, 
where not infre- 
quently fifty guests 
sat down to din- 
ner. The site of 
John Jacob Astor's 
home is desolate. 
A few aged and 
half- withered 
trees, some grassy 
mounds and strag- 
gling bushes, give 
token that the 
place was once in- 
habited, but that is 
all. It is a pity, 
too. The house — 
I have a picture of 
it before me — is a 
square frame build- 
ing, with an exten- 
sion in the rear. 
The great door of 
the hall had a win- 
dow of correspond- 
ing size above it, and two windows on either side. The 
wide, low porch was supported by four pillars, which 




MONUMENT TO THOMAS ADDIS EMMET 



442 MY SUMMER ACRE 

reached to the roof, and the latter, peaked at the cen- 
tre, had a single dormer-window in front. The lawn is 
open in front towards the water, but on either side, and 
at the rear, are trees of various kinds — evergreens, 
beeches, and elms. There is no pretension about the 
house or lands, neither the display of the landscape-gar- 
dener or the architect, but the house looks like a fitting 
nest for the man who dreamed Astoria and penned it. 
The fact is that the gentlemen of high-collared coats 
built for comfort and hospitality. Two blocks away 
is the country home of Nathaniel Prime, the great 
banker of the firm of Prime, Ward & Sands, who 
married a daughter of Comfort Sands, and when in 
town lived in state at No. i Broadway. His country- 
seat, which faces to the north-east, looking across 
Hell Gate and up the East River, is a model of a sub- 
urban homestead. Its broad porches at the front, 
side, and rear were made to shelter its great hall and 
wide rooms from the sun and the winds. The house, 
which is two stories in height, but is made massive in 
appearance by its abutting wings, is in an excellent 
state of preservation, and is now one of the buildings 
occupied by St. Joseph's Orphan Asylum. Yesterday, 
as I passed, a score of merry lads were running across 
the lawn, which stands high above the grade of the 
street, shouting at their play. As I walked slowly up 
the street and looked back at the peak of the roof, 
marking the old-fashioned arched window in the cen- 
tre of the garret and the quarter windows on either 
side, I could have wished myself an orphan under its 
shelter — if only they would let me bring my pipe, two 
of the cats, and The Boy ! 

ThouGfh the rural homestead of Archibald Gracie 







I AND 3 BROADWAY IN 1828 



still stands in much of its primitive strength and 
comeliness, it may disappear at any time. The firm 
of Archibald Gracie & Co. exists as it did a hundred 
years ago, but the house in which Louis Philippe, 
John Ouincy Adams, Tom Moore, and Washington 
Irving were guests of its founder long since passed 
into other hands. Its surroundings are not attractive, 
and a high board fence is an unpleasant feature, but 
its grounds are still so spacious, and the memories of 
those who were sheltered under its roof are yet so 
tangible, that it is worth a walk on foot from the Bat- 
tery to Horn's Hook to view it in the golden haze of 
these autumnal days and hang the picture up in mem- 
ory's gallery. Beautiful for situation, it stands on a 



444 MY SUMMER ACRE 

cape that juts out into the river, and its windows 
command a view of Hell Gate and its rocks, the isl- 
ands in the upper channel, Long Island's wooded 
shores, the forests that hang above Oak Point, the 
growing, throbbing streets of Harlem ; a hundred 
flashing craft are spread before the eye, and nearer at 
hand is a lawn that yet has the look of velvet, in 
which seven great trees and a score of lesser ones 
stand sentinel. Supreme among the group, a mon- 
arch no less by right of his majestic growth than be- 
cause of his two centuries of years, towers a mighty 
cotton-wood, which measures fourteen feet in circum- 
ference at the height of thirty -six inches from the 
ground, and lifts itself up fifty feet from the earth be- 
fore it sends out its branches. Its enormous dome, 
symmetrical and beautiful, makes a landmark which 
every man who sails the waters of the East River 
would miss and mourn if storm uprooted it or axe 
were laid at its root. The house — large, roomy, fenced 
round with wide porches that take away from its 
size rather than add to it — looks as if it might readily 
accommodate a hundred guests, and were prepared 
to-day to welcome them. Eighty years ago it was 
the home of an American prince, whose fleet of clip- 
pers- with their ted and white signals was known in 
every sea — only a merchant, but hospitable as a king. 
It seems strange to read in a city newspaper of 1809, 
published when Mobile was a Spanish settlement, and 
there was but one steamboat in all the world, and fash- 
ionable New York dined at three o'clock, the an- 
nouncement that Archibald Gracie, of Mobile, has 
taken into partnership his son Archibald, and that the 
business will be conducted under their joint names. 



MY SUMMER ACRE 445 

In the son's veins, through his maternal ancestry, 
mingled the blood of the last colonial Governor of 
Connecticut, and of Matthew Rogers, who owned and 
occupied the unique building at No. 8 State Street, 
facing the Battery. 

I sit here thinking of those trees on historic Horn's 
Hook — trees which stood there when, in 1760, Jacob 
Walton, a colonial merchant prince, brought hither to 
his elegant country-seat his fair young bride, Polly 
Cruger, daughter of Henry Cruger, the colleague of 
Burke as Member of Parliament from Bristol ; when, 
fifteen years later. Gen. Charles Lee ordered the house 
to be vacated, and made it his own headquarters ; 
when, a year later, the British moved up the Long 
Island shore to Hallett's Point, after the disastrous 
battle on Brooklyn Heights, and opened a heavy 
artillery fire upon the American works and garrison 
at Horn's Hook, and which have witnessed all the 
changes since. How long have these mute witnesses 
of the country's glory and the city's growth to live ? 
It was unpardonable stupidity that did not seize this 
choicest of all points on the East River for a public 
park ; it will be the height of cruelty to slay these 
surviving monarchs of the primeval woods that once 
covered this part of the Island of Manhattan ! Who 
will dare wield the axe to kill this king of all our trees 
— the last of the giant cotton-woods? In answer to 
this question comes a memory of the first school that 
I attended, when but a mite of a boy. The teacher 
was scholarly, but eccentric. He should have been a 
college professor, but was such a child himself that he 
taught a primary school. One of the larger boys had 
cut into and partly girdled a maple in front of the 



446 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



school -house, and how the boy did catch it! The 
single sentence of reproof has always remained with 
me : " The boy that would injure a shade-tree would 
kill a man." I used to make light of the old peda- 
gogue's verdict ; now I am afraid that I believe it. 
The old colonel, into whose protecting lap Martha 
Washington has climbed, vows that he will slay with 
his own hand the wretch who dares thrust his steel 
into the great Gracie tree. 




A DUTCH HOUSE 



MY SUMMER ACRE 447 



CHAPTER X 

A GLANCE AT HARLEM — THE LESSON OF THE WOODPECKER — A GREAT 
MILL-POND THAT HAS DISAPPEARED — THE OTTER TRACK AND 
BENSON'S CREEK — GRIST-MILLS ON THIRD AVENUE — OLD DUTCH 
HOMES AND NAMES 

There was a woodpecker at work on the big 
cherry-tree this morning. For an hour he hammered 
away, with an industry which ought to have brought 
him a good breakfast. His figure flashed from one 
side of the trunk to the other with such rapidity that 
we watched with wonder to see where the silv^er fret- 
ting of his wings and the sheen of his glossy black 
back would next show themselves. A busy little fel- 
low he, who paid no attention to the idle crew that 
gazed at him in delight, but thrust his bill into worm- 
holes with an accuracy that never made a mistake. It 
was my daughter Nellie who descried him first. She 
took me by the button-hole as I pushed my chair 
back from the breakfast- table, marched me out on 
the porch, and, pointing to the woodpecker, bade me 
behold my prototype. " See," she said, " how he delves 
into dark places and digs out their hidden treasures, 
happy when he has brought to light the secrets that 
are hidden there." I pleaded guilty, with a smile, 
and took off my hat to the .speckled delver. 

Yes, mine has been the life of the little bird this 
summer, and I am loath to leave my ancient home- 
stead and pause from its antiquarian studies. An- 



448 MY SUMMER ACRE 

other year and the house that has known fourscore 
years of the joys and sorrows of Hfe will be levelled 
to the ground, the axe will be hurled against the heart 
of these old trees, my garden will disappear, and on 
the real estate map of the city a red parallelogram 
will take the place of the yellow one of to-day, to de- 
note to the inquirer that a row of brick tenements oc- 
cupies the site of the quaint old frame-house by the 
river. So I linger, while it is yet possible and while 
the golden glory of these autumnal days makes life 
under the scarlet leaves of tree and vine a luxury, 
over the landscape whose forgotten beauties still exist 
for me, I trace out the brooks and ponds, headlands 
and meadows, country-seats and farm-houses, hills and 
bits of forest of the olden time, and for the moment 
they are real. I call up the sturdy old Dutch farmer 
in voluminous waistcoats and leathern breeches, the 
bewigged and belaced English colonist who brought 
with him the roystering ways of the mother-country, 
and made the valley of the Harlem resound with the 
cry of the fox-hunt ; the soldiers in the scarlet of the 
King and the patriot battalions in buff and blue ; the 
merchant princes and jurists and men of leisure, whose 
country residences once crowned every hillock in view; 
the mill-pond and creek in the distance ; the little ru- 
ral village, and its whitewashed church surmounted by 
a gilded weathercock; the stage-coach, horse -ferry, 
and rustic tavern — all these are hammered out by the 
bill of the literary woodpecker. It is not much in 
the eyes of a financier, perhaps, but then he would 
not think much of the busy little bird either, and 
the latter, though not so large as the hawk or a 
buzzard, is as merry as the day is long. What more 



MY SUMMER ACRE 449 

could he ask? He has his wings and his twig, and he 
finds his worm when he wants it. For anything be- 
yond, he is wise enough not to bother his head. 

It is always worth while to go to the bottom of a 
hole and find the nugget that lies there. I have been 
looking up the meaning of the old Dutch designation 
" hook," which occurs so frequently on the ancient 
maps of the Island of Manhattan, and which yet sur- 
vives in Tubby Hook on the North River. That pro- 
found work, entitled the Goot Woordcnboeck, published 
at Rotterdam in 1658, says that the word " hoeck," or 
" hook," signifies a nook, a corner, or an angle. The 
ancient maps of the Hell Gate district locate Hoorn's 
Hook at the foot of Eighty -ninth Street, and Van 
Kenlen's Hook at the southern bank and outlet of 
the Harlem River. The latter took its name from 
the family who pre-empted and occupied the 200 acres 
south of the Harlem and extending to Fifth Avenue. 
Although a landed proprietor by the name of Horn 
purchased a portion of the property in the neighbor- 
hood of Eighty-ninth Street, the locality did not de- 
rive its title from him, but, like New Amsterdam and 
New Haarlem, it was baptized in memory of Hoorn 
in Holland, where Siebert Claesen, a wealthy burgher 
of New Amsterdam in the days of Governor Peter 
Stuyvesant, had passed many pleasant days, and whose 
fragrant memory he desired to perpetuate. 

As early as 1636 the pioneers of Dutch civilization 
made their appearance in the fertile plains at the foot 
of the rocky height to which they gave the name of 
Slang Berge, or Snake Hill, now called Mount Morris. 
There had been an Indian village at this point, and 
the Indians had given to the land the musical name 



450 MV SUMMER ACRE 

Muscoota, signifying the flats or meadows, and the 
river was designated by the same title. Isaac de 
Rasieres, who was secretary of the Dutch West India 
Company in 1628, gives the first written description 
of the locality, and says that while towards Hell Gate 
and to the westward it was rocky and full of trees, 
towards the north end it had good bottom-lands. 
The mind of the Hollander was instinctively drawn 
to what the early colonists called the flats of the Isl- 
and of Manhattan, and the region was all the more 
attractive because it was bordered by salt meadows 
traversed at many points by creeks and kills. Under 
the shadow of Snake Hill they laid out a village. Its 
present spires and shipping, its railways and colossal 
structures of brick and stone, form part of the land- 
scape from my windows, but they do not obliterate 
the woods and fields, the old Dutch homesteads and 
farm-houses, the streams and inlets now vanished but 
upon which my eyes looked more than forty years 
ago, and whose remembrance is as vivid as the city 
home of my childhood. 

When the present plan of city streets was adopted, 
eighty years since, the eastern post -road, which di- 
verged from the present Third Avenue at Eighty- 
third Street and crossed Fourth Avenue at Eighty- 
fifth Street, passed the corner of Observatory Place 
and intersected the Middle Road at Ninetieth Street. 
Observatory Place was intended as a square for a 
reservoir, and extended from Eighty-ninth to Ninety- 
fourth Street, and from Fifth to Sixth Avenue. The 
road then passed in a northerly direction between the 
latter avenues, and crossed a small bridge over the 
head of Benson's tide mill-pond, near One Hundred 



/-■/ f H H.I 1 ' 




MY SUMMER ACRE 453 

and Fifth Street and Fifth Avenue, and thence swept 
a Httle west of Third Avenue, through the village of 
Harlem, which was located between One Hundred 
and Sixteenth and One Hundred and Twenty-fifth 
streets, and so on to the Harlem River. From Ninety- 
second Street there was a road which crossed over to 
Kingsbridge Road, striking it a little to the west of 
the present Eighth Avenue at Myer's Corner, about 
One Hundred and Thirty-first Street. Another lane, 
called the Harlem Road, passed from the village over 
the Harlem flat to the north of Snake Hill, and made 
a junction with the Kingsbridge Road at Myer's Cor- 
ner. These roads were all laid out in the seventeenth 
century, at which time also the diverging road to 
H corn's Hook was cut through the woods that then 
lined the banks of the river. The land must have 
been exceedingly fair to look upon then, for Governor 
Wouter Van Twiller, who had laid hands upon the 
Island of Tenkeins opposite, now known as Ward's 
Island, to appropriate it, as early as 1633 pre-empted 
all the lands bordering on Hell Gate Bay which had 
obtained the name of Otter-spoor or otter track, from 
the number of otters with which it abounded. 

Through this tract swept a creek which was 100 
feet wide at its mouth and 20 feet deep, and was navi- 
gable for half a mile or more inland. It emptied into 
Hell Gate Bay near One Hundred and Seventh Street, 
thence stretching westwardly up and beyond Fifth 
Avenue, one of its sources being in Central Park, and 
the other, a rippling brook, fed by crystal springs that 
nestled at the foot of the rocks in Morningside Park. 
The spring in Central Park was known as "Montanye's 
fonteyn," and still exists in its perennial freshness. 



454 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



The curious wayfarer might find it in its original basin 
on the Hne of One Hundred and Fifth Street and to 
the west of the Sixth Avenue line, but the basin has 
been covered up, and a hidden pipe leads the waters 
to the foot of the hill where, in a " hook " or angle of 
the rocks, it bubbles forth as merrily as of old, and 
leaps along its ancient bed until it falls into the waters 
of Harlem Lake. Originally known as Montanye's, 
the next century gave the name Benson's Creek to 
this stream, and on later maps it appeared as Harlem 
Creek until obliterated by the march of the spade 
and the hod. 

The Dutch had hardly begun to farm the fertile 
glebe of Harlem before one of their number saw the 
advantages of the stream, and proposed to the good 
burghers to help him in building a bridge. But they 
deliberated long, and doubtless smoked up several 
hogsheads of tobacco before they could see their way 
clearly to such a venture. At last they seemed to 
have organized a sort of trust, or " combine," in the 
line of public improvements. Not to do things by 
halves, they determined that Harlem should have a 
grist-mill, a tavern, and a ferry, and they proceeded to 
put the enterprise in operation. The dam for the 
mill was built in 1667. It crossed the creek a little 
to the west of Third Avenue at One Hundred and 
Ninth Street, and at its northern end stood the grist- 
mill. There was a stone bridge at Third Avenue, and 
another crossed Mill Creek at One Hundred and 
Eleventh Street and Fifth Avenue, the mill-pond ex- 
tending this distance back and giving its name to the 
principal brook that fed it. In 1730 Derick Benson 
became owner of the property, having removed hither 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



455 



from Greenwich Village — the Bassen Bouwery of 
old Dutch days, where dwelt the Mandevilles, Van 
Schaicks, Woertendykes, and Somerindykes of Hol- 
land ancestry. For some years the mill had fallen 
into disuse, and in October, 1738, the town granted 
permission to Samson Benson, his brother, to erect a 
mill with a dam and dvvcllino--house. 



■7^- ''^^^ 




mi 

Courtney's (claremont) from harlem tower 

During the War of the Revolution these buildings, 
which were occupied by the military, who had a for- 
tification at Benson's Point (the southern bank of 
the creek, known later as Rhinelander's Point), were 
burned to the ground. After the war was ended 
Benjamin Benson built a new mill and a substantial 
stone dwelling on the Mill Camp farm, as it was then 
called. In 1827, when the Harlem Canal was begun, 



456 MY SUMMER ACRE 

that speculative enterprise, gigantic for those days, 
which was to unite the waters of the Hudson and 
East rivers by a navigable canal from Benson's Point 
to Harlem Cove, now Manhattanville, the mill, a frame 
building three stories in height, was taken down, but 
the dwelling-house was spared until 1865. I well re- 
member the canal, with its stone embankments and 
locks, Avhich was extended beyond Fourth Avenue be- 
fore it was abandoned ; and, indeed, the man of forty 
can recall it, and picture to himself how oddly ap- 
peared this bit of costly enterprise that crossed deso- 
late marshes and barren wastes of ground. It has 
disappeared now, and a busy city covers up all trace 
of canal and marsh. The stranger would never dream 
that the snipe had so recently teetered on the site of 
yonder tall houses, and that it was only the whistle of 
the elevated train that finally drowned his cry. But 
there are old men who remember the quiet mill-pond 
and its overhanging willows, the dusty roadway lined 
with beeches and elms, the stone bridge and the salt- 
marshes on either side, and out towards Hell Gate 
Bay and Horn's Hook the beautiful country-seats 
which diversified the landscape of river, rapids, mead- 
ows, and islands. 

On either side of Benson's Creek, in the time of 
which I write, were stately country-seats which faced 
the mouth of the stream, and whose lawns stretched 
down to its waters. One of these, the Bayard house, 
still stands on One Hundred and Tenth Street, be- 
tween First and Second avenues. It is almost hidden 
by gigantic gas-tanks at the front and rear. Yet it 
still looks towards the stream that is no more, and has 
strangely outlived it. Now, after nearly a century of 



MY SUMMER ACRE 457 

life, it retains much of its old look, and its chimneys 
at either end, its shingled roof, wide porch, and the 
broken slant of its galleried roof, proclaim its antiqui- 
ty. Lifted high above the street, something of its 
once magnificent lawn is still left, and a cotton-wood 
and elm, each seemingly older than the house they 
guard, stand on either side as mute witnesses to a 
splendor that has been lost forever. 

I do not know what name, if any, this ancient man- 
sion bore in the days of its glory, but there were some 
names emblazoned on the old Dutch homes of Har- 
lem that deserve to be rescued from oblivion. One 
would not suspect the Holland tradesmen and naviga- 
tors of a tendency to poetry, yet these sterling old 
souls had it in their hearts, if not on their tongues. 
They may have cheated the Indians, sworn at the 
Yankees, and drunk heavily of schnapps on the Strand, 
but when they came back to their boweries the spirit 
of home brooded under their ample vests. Zegendal, 
" the vale of blessing," was the name one sturdy set- 
tler in Harlem bestowed upon the homestead he had 
made, and another called his glebe Vredendal, " the 
vale of repose," or quiet. It is a pity that some of 
these names could not have been preserved ; a greater 
pity still that the old Indian names which the aborigi- 
nes of the Island of Manhattan bequeathed us have 
almost passed into oblivion. No one remembers that 
the Harlem River was called the Muscoota ; Tib- 
bett's Brook is usurping the name Mosholu ; Spuy- 
ten Duyvil has superseded Schorakapok, or Spouting 
Spring, and the land around Hell Gate Bay no longer 
recalls its Indian designation, Conykeekst — the home 
of the rabbit. Through the haze of these autumnal 



458 



MY SUMiMER ACRE 



days I look out upon fields on the farther shore in 
which the shocks of corn stand like wigwams of the 
red man. The corn will be gathered to-morrow, and 
the winds from the north will sweep away the golden 
mists of to-day. I am very sorry for the Indian, but, 
really, this beautiful island is a little too good for him, 
even were he all that Fenihiore Cooper has painted 
him. 




HEAD OVER WINDOW OF THE WALTON HOUSE 



MY SUMMER ACRE 459 



CHAPTER XI 

RAMBLES AROUND HARLEM — IN MY SCHOOL-BOY DAYS — EARLY SET- 
TLERS AND THEIR HOMES— AN INTERIOR VIEW — THE STAGE-COACH 
ERA — A VILLAGE ALDEKMAN OF THE OLDEN TIME 

" For what is the City of Haarlem famous?" 
" For its great organ — the largest in the world." 
These words were certainly not spoken. They 
came back to me from the mists of half a century 
ago, and were the echo of my thoughts. Master Felix 
and I were sitting in the library. He was studying 
his geography lesson, and I was reading about the 
pioneers who established a " Nieuw Haarlem " on the 
flats of Manhattan. There may have been an unseen 
connection between these two facts, but I maintain 
that no sound was audible. The echoed question and 
answer brought before me a little urchin in round- 
about and trousers, with a ruffle around his neck, 
standing with his class in a room which occupied the 
entire front of the second story in a little brick house 
on Franklin Street. Desks for a score of boys were 
strung closely together against the front and sides of 
the room. At the rear was a mahogany table, behind 
which sat the teacher in his arm-chair. On the table 
were books, bunches of quill-pens, and sand-boxes — for 
the steel-pen was an object of prejudice and blotting- 
paper was unknown — together with forfeited apples, 
cakes, fly-boxes constructed of paper, balls, and mar- 



460 MY SUMMER ACRE 

bles, and certain flat rulers and rounded rattans, which 
were used interchangeably, according as discipline was 
administered to the palm of the hand or other more 
robust portions of the juvenile anatomy. In those 
days there was no revised version of the Scriptures, 
and our teacher, who was a son of the granite hills of 
New Hampshire, and likewise superintendent of the 
Sunday-school attached to the Presbyterian Church 
on Murray Street, was a devout believer in King Sol- 
omon's advice about sparing the rod and spoiling the 
child. 

It is ;i pleasure to note the love for their city which 
lies in the hearts of the old sons of New York, and 
which seems not only to survive many other emo- 
tions, but to grow deeper with advancing years. More 
letters with a word of sympathy in his pursuits have 
come to Felix Oldboy than he has had time to ac- 
knowledge, and most grateful among these have been 
kindly messages from some of my old school-fellows. 
The latest of these came from the Union Club, written 
by a gentleman of scholarly tastes and civic eminence, 
whom every New Yorker would recognize were I to 
write his name, in which he says : " I entered the 
school of J. J. Greenough, as a student, in May, 1839, 
more than fifty years ago, then at No. 399 Greenwich 
Street, near Jay, on the east side of the street, and re- 
mained three years, when I entered the university 
grammar-school. In May, 1840, Mr. Greenough re- 
moved his school to No, 18 Walker Street, and the 
next year to Franklin Street. Of those who were 
students at the school during my term I know of only 
three living : George C. Wetmore, Theodore Wet- 
more, and George De Forest Lord. I have many 



MY SUMMER ACRE 463 

pleasant recollections of those school - days, it being 
the first boys' school that I attended. I saw much of 
Mr. Greenough after I left his school; he always felt 
very kindly towards me, and on my departure pre- 
sented me with a recommendation to a new school, 
handsomely engrossed, which I have preserved. He 
also gave me his portrait in oil, taken many years be- 
fore, which I now have. This I looked at this morn- 
ing to refresh my memory of the old days." It is a 
pleasure to read such a letter. As I hold it in my 
hand and look back to the past, the rod of which I 
stood in awe changes into an olive-branch in the hand 
of my ancient teacher, and his shade smiles as pleas- 
antly upon me as if I had never gleefully plotted his 
discomfiture. 

But, with the garrulousness of a seventeenth -cen- 
tury preacher, whom I shall presently have need to 
quote, I am wandering from my text. Harlem was 
always to me, in my younger days, the land of delight- 
ful mystery, the ultijna tJinle of the Island of Man- 
hattan,' a region of hill -side and forest, of rocky de- 
files and marshy meadows, of brooks, in whose head 
waters the sunfish and perch abounded and at whose 
mouths the succulent flounder could be caught, of 
pleasant shade under the cotton-wood, oak, and tulip 
trees, of buttercups, daisies, and gentians, of farm and 
village life as contrasted with city roar and rumble. 
A picnic in this region was the acme of school-boy 
pleasure, especially if it included a trip on the rail- 
road, which slowly crept through the deep passes cut 
through the rocks at Yorkville, stopping at Harsen's 
cross-road and at the middle road to drop its pas- 
sengers, and landing, finally, after what seemed a long 



464 MY SUiMMER ACRE 

ride, at lonely Harlem. The nineteenth century has 
not gone out without witnessing vestibule trains, with 
modern hotel accommodations on wheels ; but this 
luxury of travel will never bring me the same amount 
of pleasure that I used to extract from the barracks 
on wheels of forty years ago, the horse-hair seats, nar- 
row windows with small panes of glass, and flat, un- 
ventilated roofs. Uncomfortable though they were, 
they were to me as the enchanted carpet of the Ara- 
bian Nights, and no similar amount of enjoyment 
could be purchased elsewhere for a shilling. 

History represents the early Dutch settlers as a 
phlegmatic race who had always an eye to the main 
chance, but I shall never hesitate to express the opin- 
ion that they had also an eye to the beautiful, even if 
poetry was made secondary to pelf. It must also be 
remembered that many of the men who first came to 
New Amsterdam were Huguenot refugees, who had 
kept up, during their temporary exile in the lowlands 
of Holland, a vivid remembrance of the mountains 
and meadows of la belle France. The pioneer settler 
in Harlem, Henri De Forest — who dwelt but one short 
year in the home he had built under the shadow of 
Snake HilJ, and then was called to enter the house 
not made with hands — was a native of France, and of 
the reformed faith, and several of his colleagues had 
the same ancestry. I do not wonder at their enthu- 
siasm for the place they selected for their new colony. 
If they climbed Snake Hill and looked abroad, I do 
not wonder that they were enchanted with the pros- 
pect. Three rivers glanced in the sunshine before 
them ; mountain, forest, and plain were parted by 
small ponds and innumerable brooks, and at their 



MY SUMMER ACRE 465 

feet, sheltered by two ranges of hills from the blasts 
of the north-westerly winds, lay a rich alluvial belt 
that promised a hundred-fold return to their labor as 
husbandmen. They felt that it was good to be there; 
and building better than they knew, they hewed out 
the rafters that were to be the foundations of the 
magnificent new city of to-day that covers the sites of 
their farms of the olden time. 

Yesterday I climbed Mount Morris, and changed as 
the scene has become by the improvements which in 
two centuries have blotted out much of the ancient 
loveliness of the landscape, I felt like challenging any 
other city in the world to produce its equal. There 
sparkled the East River and Hell Gate, with their 
setting of emerald islands and wooded banks ; there 
the waters of the Harlem, spanned by aqueduct and 
bridge, wound along until they seemed to sink into 
the base of the distant, purple Palisades; there again 
rose the wooded heights of Fordham on one side and 
of Inwood and Fort Washington on the other ; and the 
rocky ramparts of Morningside Park, with the teem- 
ing city below, while the hills and trees and meadows 
of Central Park broke the monotony of bricks and 
mortar and made a pleasant resting-place for the eye. 
All around me, at my feet, rose the magnificent public 
buildings and homes of a city that had grown up in a 
decade — built as by the magic of a day — the city of 
Nieuw Haarlem; indeed, but a city of which the timid 
projectors of the village on the flats never dreamed. 
Yet let us not be surprised that they did not dream 
of it, when the man who projected and built the Erie 
Canal — De Witt Clinton, New York's greatest mayor 
— deemed it an improbability that the land at this 
30 



466 MY SUMMER ACRE 

end of the Island of Manhattan could be built up in 
city fashion during the present century. 

The garrulous preacher of the seventeenth century, 
to whom reference has been made, was a schismatic 
of the Labadist persuasion, who, like other fanatics, 
believed that all the salt of the earth was confined 
to his mite of a sect. He made one of his visits to 
Haarlem in the October days of 1679, and he de- 
scribes the Dutch minister, who sometimes preached 
there, and whom he did not fellowship in doctrine, as 
" a thick, corpulent person, with a red, bloated face, 
and of a very slabbering speech." If we are to credit 
this apostle of heresy, the people of the village spent 
much of their time in drinking rum and carousing, 
but even this narrow-minded man could not help be- 
ing impressed by the natural beauty of his surround- 
ings. "A little eastward of Nieuw Haarlem," he 
writes in his journal, " there are two ridges of very 
high rocks, with a considerable space between them, 
displaying themselves very majestically, and inviting 
all men to acknowledge in them the majesty, gran- 
deur, power, and glory of the Creator, who has im- 
pressed such marks upon them." And he rounds off 
his description with the assertion that the grapes 
were as good as any he had tasted " in the Father- 
land," and that " the peaches were the best he had 
ever eaten." 

A later traveller, writing a quarter of a century after- 
wards, gives us a glimpse of the interior of one of the 
homes of Harlem, and, being a woman, her eyes ob- 
serve narrowly. " The inside of them " (meaning the 
houses), she writes, " are neat to admiration ; the 
wooden work, for only the walls are plastered and 



MY SUMMER ACRE 467 

the sumers [the central beam] and gist [joist] are 
plained and kept very white scowr'd, as so is all the 
partitions made of Bord. The fireplaces have no 
Jambs, as ours have, but the backs run flush with the 
walls, and the Hearth is of Tyles and is as farr out 
into the Room at the Ends as before the fire, which 
is generally Five foot in the lower rooms ; and the 
piece over where the mantle tree should be is made 
as ours with Joyner's work and, as I suppose, is fast- 
ened to the iron rodds inside. The House where the 
Vendue was had Chimney Corners like ours, and they 
and the Hearth were laid with the finest tile that I 
ever see, and the staircases laid with white tile, which 
is ever clean and so are the walls of the Kitchen which 
had a Brick floor." The tiles in the staircase were set 
into the wall, forming a continuous border to the up- 
per line of the stairs, as can still be seen in some of 
the old Dutch houses in the interior, and notably in 
the old Coeyman homestead on the bank of the upper 
Hudson. 

I have said that the growth of New York has far 
outstripped even the most sanguine expectations of 
De Witt Clinton, and I read this in the report made 
by the commissioners he appointed to lay out the 
streets and roads of the city under the act of 1807 — 
Gouverneur Morris, Simeon De Witt, and John Ruth- 
erford. In laying out the streets they made provision 
for a parade-ground for the militia, to extend from 
Twenty-third to Thirty-fourth Street, and from Third 
to Seventh Avenue, as well as for other smaller parks ;* 

*It was at the suggestion of Hon. James Harper, when Mayor of 
New York, and under his influence, that Madison Square was laid out 
as it now exists. — L. 



468 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



and in their report to Mayor Clinton, in 1809, they 
apologize for doing so, and add : " It may be a sub- 
ject of merriment that the commissioners have pro- 
vided space for a greater population than is gathered 
at any spot this side of China. They have, in this re- 
spect, been governed by the shape of the ground. It 
is not improbable that considerable numbers may be 
collected at Harlem before the high hills to the south- 
ward of it shall be built upon as a city ; and it is im- 
probable that, for centuries to come, the grounds north 
of Harlem flat will be covered with houses. To have 
come short of the extent laid out might therefore 
have defeated just expectations; and to have gone 
further might have furnished material to the perni- 




McGOWAN's pass in i860 



cious spirit of speculation." The ghosts of the highly 
respected citizens who penned these words must be 
mightily dumfounded at the city that stretches up from 
the Battery to the Harlem River, leaps across that 



MY SUMMER ACRE 469 

stream on wings of steam, and is rapidly striding tow- 
ards the classic Bronx. 

As designed by Mr. John Randel, the city surveyor 
under Clinton, Harlem was to have two parks. One 
of these, Harlem Square, was laid out between One 
Hundred and Seventeenth and One Hundred and 
Twenty-first streets and Sixth and Seventh avenues, 
on the common lands of the city. The other, to be 
known as Harlem Marsh Square, was laid out on the 
commissioners' plan from One Hundred and Sixth to 
One Hundred and Ninth Street, and from Fifth Ave- 
nue to the East River at Benson's Point. It con- 
tained nearly seventy acres, and until the canal at this 
point was projected, was considered the best and 
most healthful means of disposing of Harlem Creek 
and its adjacent marshes, whenever the growth of the 
village should demand the obliteration of the mill-dam 
and stream. And hereabouts, I must not omit to say, 
was the home of the McGowns, who gave their name 
(written in history as McGowan) to the famous rocky 
pass, still traceable in the upper part of Central Park, 
through which the troops of Washington sent the red- 
coats flying at the battle of Harlem Plains. Mr. An- 
drew McGown, the famous old Harlem Democrat, fa- 
ther of Judge A J McGown, was fond of sailing on 
the waters of the East River, and kept his yacht at 
his residence, which stood at the foot of One Hundred 
and Ninth Street. He had a canal cut through the 
marshes to the foot of his lawn, to enable him to have 
his yacht brought up close to the house, and it re- 
mained open until quite recently, when it had to be 
filled in to sustain the onward march of improvement. 
The McGown family originally came from Scotland, 




WORKS AT MCGOWAN'S PASS, WAR OF i8i2 



and settled in Harlem a number of generations ago. 
In the days of '']^ Daniel McGown, father of Andrew 
McGown, resided at the homestead in McGown's 
Pass, about where Mount St. Vincent Hotel now is — 
at One Hundred and Sixth Street and Sixth Avenue. 
After the gallant action on Harlem Plains, where the 
Americans for two days successively drove back the 
British troops, sending them whirling below Yorkville, 
Lord Howe moved up his entire army from the city 
to retrieve the disaster. The advance-guard was the 
Hessian brigade. They stopped at the McGown home- 
stead, and found that the only male person at home 
was this child of twelve years — Andrew McGown — 
whose father was in Washington's army. The boy 
was pressed into service to guide the column of mer- 
cenaries against the American camp. Quick-witted 
and patriotic, he gave no sign that he was other than 
pleased, but he led the Hessians a merry dance over 



MY SUMMER ACRE 471 

hill and marsh and meadow, down to the North River, 
near the present Riverside Park, while the American 
forces were leisurely taking themselves out of the 
way and camping behind their intrenchments at Fort 
Washington. A boy that day was the salvation of 
his country. 

It was by such a spirit as this little lad's that inde- 
pendence was achieved and the corner-stone of the 
country's prosperity was laid. We need a little more 
of it in these days of Irish-American, German-Ameri- 
can, and other un-American mixtures, when it is made 
a political crime to call one's self an American sim- 
ply, or to act or vote as such, and when an eloquent 
imported preacher proclaims that there are no Ameri- 
cans except the Indians. The boys and the men who 
fought in the Revolution were the fathers of the race, 
and the women who suffered in their absence, and 
sustained these heroes by their patriotism, were the 
mothers. When they are forgotten, or when we cease 
to honor them, it will be near the hour of sunset in 
our land. 

Fifty or sixty years ago, when the only passenger 
conveyance between Harlem and New York was by 
Dingledine's stage, which left the corner of One Hun- 
dred and Twenty -fifth Street and Third Avenue at 
seven o'clock in the morning and reached Park Row, 
opposite the City Hall, shortly before ten o'clock, 
returning at 3 P.M., the stage used to carry up and 
down half a dozen gentlemen, then young, but after- 
w'ards distinguished. Among them were Judge D. P. 
Ingraham, grandson of Daniel Phoenix, an eminent 
and wealthy citizen, who was City Treasurer, father 
of the present Judge Ingraham ; Edgar Ketchum, af- 



472 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



terwards Register in Bankruptcy; Alderman Charles 
Henry Hall, Daniel Fanshaw, printer to the American 
Tract Society, and Isaac Adriance. They have passed 
away, full of honors as of years, leaving precious and 
fragrant remembrance. The fare on the Dingledine 
line was twenty-five cents. A few years later the stages 
found that it paid to make hourly trips. At first they 
used to leave from No. 21 Bowery, which was a sort 
of country- hotel, with stables in the rear, but after- 
wards they resumed their old stand at Park Row. 
The fare at that time, as I well remember, was a 




bull's head tavern, on the site of the bowery theatre 



shilling, and the ride usually gave the passengers exer- 
cise enough for a week. 

The first street paved in Harlem was One Hundred 
and Twenty-ninth Street, and this improvement was 
effected in 1832. The pavement, with flagged side- 




ROSE STREET SUGAR-HOUSE 
[As it appeared in 1892, just before it was demolished] 



MY SUMMER ACRE 475 

walks, extended from Third to Eighth Avenue. How 
much of a pubhc improvement this was may be 
judged from the fact that at the time there were no 
paved streets in New York north of CHnton Place and 
St. Mark's Place, except a few in Greenwich Village. 
It was due to the efforts of Alderman Hall, who also 
caused both sides of the street to be set out with elms, 
many of which, and some of gigantic stature, still re- 
main to show how good deeds survive our dust. The 
city had men for aldermen then. During the fearful 
cholera season of 1832 it became the duty of Alder- 
man Hall, with several of his colleagues, who with him- 
self constituted the Board of Health, to visit the quar- 
antine on Staten Island. It was a perilous duty, but 
they did not hesitate. Within a fortnight all but 
Alderman Hall had died of the epidemic. Two of 
the alderman's brothers — Jonathan Prescott Hall and 
David P. Hall — were famous lawyers of the olden 
time, and the three names deserve a place in the city's 
pantheon when it shall be built. 

The old cotton -wood on the Gracie lawn is the 
largest tree on the Island of Manhattan, and I had 
thought it the largest in the city limits, but opposite, 
a lonely sentinel on the marshy point of Ward's Isl- 
and, is a venerable cotton-wood that is seventeen feet 
in girth at a point three feet from the ground. Who 
planted these giants? It was the Laird of Dumbie- 
dikes who, when he lay dying, said to his son and 
heir : " Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may 
be aye sticking in a tree ; it will be growing, Jock, 
when ye're sleeping." And how much of human nat- 
ure was there in his next words : " My father tauld me 
sae, forty years sin', but I ne'er fand time to mind 



476 MY SUMMER ACRE 

him." Our Harlem alderman found the time, and I 
have no doubt that as he now looks up into the 
branches of the tree of life by the side of that other 
river, he thinks of the little elms he stuck into the 
ground hard by our river's waves, and is glad that he 
planted them. 



TO BE SOLD, 

AT Vendue, onTuefday the 12 th inft, 
at the Houfe 0^ Mr John "Williams > 
near Mr Lifpenard's: A Leafc from Tri- 
nity Church, hr Old John's Land, for 12 
Tears to come. ^ t- 

i rrw ■ ! — " 

AN OLD ADVERTISEMENT 



MY SUMMER ACRE 477 



CHAPTER XII 

INDIAN RAIDS AND MASSACRES — A ROLL OF HONOR — THE OLD DUTCH 
CHURCH — ST. ANDREW'S PARISH — DAYS OF PESTILENCE AND DEATH 

My comrade and companion, Nebuchadnezzar, the 
great yellow cat who is the pride of the household, 
went on the war-path this morning. From the library 
window I watched his noiseless, stealthy tread ; his am- 
bush behind the lilac roots ; his patient, moveless gaze, 
and then his sudden spring upon the prey ; his up- 
lifted claws, the torture of his victim, and the final 
process of scalping, which left the rat without a head. 
Presently the. victor strutted proudly in, with tail up- 
lifted like a banner and a grim smile of satisfaction 
about the jaws, and then I felt him rubbing his sleek 
body against my legs with a purring hymn of triumph. 
It was a genuine picture from nature, and, as it was 
unfolded, I could readily see whence the red man had 
drawn his habit of patient endurance and methods of 
warfare. Had I been a Brahmin, I might have be- 
held in Nebuchadnezzar the transmigrated soul of 
Massasoit or Philip of Pokanoket. 

I had intended to sit down and write of the streets 
and people of Harlem village, but my cat has set me 
thinking of the days when the Indians were a dream 
of terror to the early settlers under the shadow of 
Snake Hill and upon Hell Gate Bay, and of the 
doughty pioneers who returned from work to find 



478 MY SUMMER ACRE 

their homes on the " otter tract " a heap of ashes, or 
were slain, together with wife and children, on the 
lands now traversed by railways and thickly sown 
with enormous buildings. If the men of those dark 
days, every one of whom seemed to have the soul of a 
king in his rugged breast, could awake, what would be 
their astonishment to see the city of palaces that has 
risen from the isolated village cottages of a decade or 
two ago, and what would stout Nicholas de Meyer say 
to the luxurious homes that surround Mount Morris 
Park, in one of which his lineal descendant, Mr. Joseph 
O. Brown, the sage of Harlem, has his abode? As 
little dreamed the parents of the first white child born 
in New Amsterdam, in their thatched cottage hard by 
the Battery, that its lineal descendant. Judge Charles 
H. Truax, would live in a home in Harlem fit for a 
nobleman, when that distant village would be almost 
the centre of the city, and would honor the family 
name upon the bench of justice. Time has seen many 
changes, but few like those which have built up the 
commercial metropolis of the western world. 

It is passing strange that so little is known of the 
Indians who inhabited the Island of Manhattan and 
of their relations to the early settlers. Fenimore 
Cooper has immortalized in romance the Delawares 
and Iroquois of the interior regions of the colony, 
but no poet or writer of romance has risen to em- 
blazon the courage of the settlers who held to battle 
for their homes in these fertile glades ; and the his- 
torian has passed lightly over the bloody deeds by 
which the savage took vengeance for his wrongs. In 
reading the pages of history, one would be led to sup- 
pose that the Dutch colonists, after purchasing the 



ih 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



479 



island for a few dollars, with sundry trinkets and bot- 
tles of veritable Dutch fire-water thrown in, had been 
permitted to take quiet possession of the land and 
push on their settlements without hinderance. The 
truth was otherwise. The Indians had sold the land, 
but reserved to themselves the right of hunting at 
will and pursuing the game everywhere. It was their 
means of livelihood, and when in time it came to in- 
terfere with the farmer's methods of sowing and gath- 
ering his crops, there was trouble. Their principal en- 
campment was at Wickquaskeek, or " the birch-bark 
country," in the forests which stretched down from 
Inwood to Fort Washington, and from this camp 
they took their right name. A haughty and proud 
race, they kept much aloof, and had given no trouble 
until Director Kieft attempted to levy a tax of corn, 
furs, and wampum upon them. It was a most impolitic 
measure, and as Montagne, one of the Harlem colo- 
nists, said : " A bridge has been built, over which war 
will soon stalk through the land." Hostilities followed, 
and forty Indians were massacred one night in cold 
blood at Corlear's Hook, some of whom were friendly 
Mareekawaks, from Brooklyn. Retaliation came next. 
The farms at Harlem were devastated ; Kuyter's bow- 
erie was burned to the ground while the guard of sol- 
diers were asleep in the cellar or underground hut, 
and the settlers fled for protection to New Amster- 
dam. A temporary truce was patched up, and then 
hostilities broke out afresh. Pieter Beeck, who owned 
the patent at Horn's Hook — where the Gracie house 
now stands — was surprised while at work on his farm, 
and, with his three workmen, was cruelly murdered. 
Still the Indians were refused compensation for their 



480 MY SUMMER ACRE 

rights and privileges, and they announced their deter- 
mination to expel the whites from the northern end 
of the island. A foray of three days ensued in Sep- 
tember, 1655, during which fifty settlers were slain, and 
over one hundred, mostly women and children, were 
carried into captivity. Hordes of armed savages swept 
over the flats. Jochen Zuyter was slain at his bow- 
erie ; later his wife fell a victim to the savages. Cor- 
nells Swits and Tobias Teunissen were killed, their 
homes on the flats and their crops destroyed, their 
families carried into captivity, and all the neighboring 
settlements were swept away. The fury of the red 
men led them also to cross the East River and carry 
desolation up and down the Long Island shore. It 
was a scene of wide-spread devastation, such as sick- 
ened the hearts of the soldiers sent up from New 
Amsterdam to bury the dead and protect the living, 
and it went on growing in blood and blackness until 
the director and council at New Amsterdam passed 
an ordinance, in 1656, requiring isolated farmers to re- 
move their families to the village, and to go out only 
with armed parties to till their lands and gather their 
crops. 

England has her Abbey Battle Roll, on which her 
proudest peer is prouder yet to find the family name 
written, and Harlem should keep in similar remem- 
brance the names of the stout-hearted pioneers, who 
battled to the death for the very existence of the an- 
cient village. The story of their struggle of twenty 
years for existence, though it ended in failure, is a rare 
record of heroism, and deserves more than the little 
glimpse of sunshine which my pen lets in upon it. 
Upon this roll of honor, in addition to those whom I 



n > 

r 




MY SUMMER ACRE 



483 



have named, I should enter the names of the De For- 
ests, Van Keulens, Delavalls, Waldrons (headed by 
stout old Resolved Waldron, the baron), Vermilyes, 
Tourneurs, Dyckmans, Kortrights, Delamaters, Bus- 
sings, and every pioneer who could be raised up from 
the dim but glorious past of local history. Some 
day the world around us will wake to the knowledge 
that there is a vein of heroism which we now tread 
underfoot, but that will be richly worth unfolding to 
the light. The men who succeed are the men who 
make history, but it is the men who do not succeed 
that furnish most of the romance to life. It was the 
pioneer whose fertile lands had been devastated by 
the savage, and whose hearth-stone had been drenched 
in the blood of women and children and their defend- 
ers, that made the future village of Harlem possible, 
and determined the authorities at New Amsterdam 
to make it an armed outpost of this city, alike against 
the wily savage and the unscrupulous Yankee. 

The village was laid out on Church Lane, whose 
grassy paths and air of rural repose, overhanging elms 
and adjacent gardens, are still kept in the memories 
of some old inhabitants of the plain as an exquisite 
picture which can never be forgotten. The road fol- 
lowed an old Indian trail to the Harlem River and 
the ferry at Morrisania. If one should draw a straight 
line from the north-eastern corner of One Hundred 
and Nineteenth Street and Lexington Avenue to the 
north-east corner of One Hundred and Twenty-third 
Street and Second Avenue, and thence to the river, 
it would pass through the centre of the old Harlem 
Road or Church Lane. Half a block from the point 
of departure it crossed the Eastern Post -road, into 



484 MY SUMMER ACRE 

which at One Hundred and Twenty -first Street and 
Sylvan Place came the old Kingsbridge Road from 
the north-west. The meeting of these roads made 
what was known to the village folks as the Five Cor- 
ners, where a market was established in 1807, ^"^ 
where again in 1840 a law was passed for the erection 
of a market-house and for the purposes of a public 
square. The market was a failure, the city was neg- 
lectful, and for years this land, occupying the half 
block between Sylvan Place and Third Avenue, was 
taken possession of by a " squatter," who paid no rent 
to the city. 

In Sylvan Place the antiquarian will find the only 
surviving traces of the old Eastern Post-road, which 
took up part of the little street and a large slice of the 
block to the east of it. Old Church Lane and the 
Kingsbridge Road also touched upon either corner of 
the little street, but one may see in the trees which 
stand in its roadway, and reach their lines out into the 
blocks adjoining, plain traces of the double line of elms, 
silver poplars, and willows through which the old stage- 
coach to Boston used to plod its way. Along the Har- 
lem Road, from One Hundred and Twentieth to One 
Hundred and Twenty-third Street, and reaching back 
six hundred feet or more to the north-west, lay the 
lands of the Reformed Dutch Church, and at One Hun- 
dred and Twenty-first Street and Third Avenue stood 
the church which I remember as a boy, and which has 
since been moved to a rear lot, and now faces upon 
the street instead of the avenue. This was built in 
1829, The original church edifice stood at the other 
end of Church Lane, at One Hundred and Twenty- 
fifth Street, about midway between Second and Third 



MY SUMMER ACRE 487 

avenues, where was also the old cemetery. The first 
structure was of wood; the second, erected in 1685, 
was of stone, and aspired to the dignity of an arched 
door, steeple, and weathercock. William Hellaker, 
of New York, contracted to build it for the sum of 
750 guilders in wheat. According to the prevalent 
Dutch custom of building houses, ships, and public 
buildings as broad as they were long, in accordance 
with the average physical proportions of the genuine 
Knickerbocker, the contract says : " The size of the 
church across either way is thirty-six Dutch feet." 
There is no doubt that it appeared a thing of beauty 
to all village eyes, when the gilded vane or weather- 
cock, with the glittering ball on which it was perched, 
and for which John Delamater had been credited nine 
florins, was proudly raised to the top of the steeple, 
and left there to decide for once and always any 
dispute as to the way of the wind. Among the sub- 
scribers I note the names of Tourneur, Dyckman, 
Kortright, Bogert, Van Brevoort, and Geresolveert (Re- 
solved) Waldron, for 100 florins each — every man of 
note in the colony for some substantial sum. The 
total cost, in addition to work and material furnished 
by the people, was 2600 guilders. 

Everything went well in the new church until the 
Leisler troubles of 1690, when the Harlem people nat- 
urally took sides with the martyred Dutch governor, 
who had been executed for his fidelity to the rights 
of the people, and they cut loose from the brethren 
of New Amsterdam to such an extent that Dominie 
Selyns wrote to the classis of Old Amsterdam that the 
Harlem people had run away with the idea that they 
could live without ministers or sacraments. The breach 



488 MY SUMMER ACRE 

was soon healed, however, and the church grew strong 
and prosperous. Until the organization of St. Mary's 
Episcopal Congregation at Manhattanville, the Re- 
formed Dutch Church at Harlem was the only church 
of any denomination within the limits of Harlem, 
which, as a separate village organization, comprised 
the upper half of the Island of Manhattan, and held 
to its boundary-lines (from the foot of Seventy-second 
Street on the East River to the foot of One Hundred 
and Twenty-fifth Street on the Hudson) with great 
tenacity in all questions which concerned itself and 
the city at the other end of the island. 

There was a sturdy independence about these an- 
cient Dutch and Huguenot pioneers, which occasion- 
ally came to the surface in their church legislation. 
At one time, in order to pay the salary of Jan la 
Montagne, voorleser (that is, foresinger, who led the 
singing and read the Bible in the church) and school- 
master, the magistrates laid a tax upon the land. But 
it came to nothing. The people objected to being 
taxed for religious purposes. They had enough of 
that in their old homes, and the French and Walloons 
especially had suffered cruel treatment under this pre- 
tence of tithes. The opposition proved effectual, and 
a return was made to the old method of free-will offer- 
ings, and with apparent success. 

There was also a good deal of human nature in the 
little settlement, and sometimes it involved disputes 
that were difficult to arrange amicably. No sooner 
had this matter of the foresinger been settled than 
public excitement was raised to fever heat by the 
refusal of several leading men to pay the prices as- 
sessed by the pound-master. Horses belonging to Cor- 



MY SUMMER ACRE 489 

nelis Jansen, the innkeeper, to Resolved Waldron and 
Adolph Meyer, oxen that were the property of David 
Demarest and Jean le Roy, and hogs owned by Dela- 
vall and Roloefsen, were found without a herder " upon 
the bouwland " or cropping the herbage " in the gar- 
den " belonging to the church, and straightway were 
driven to the pound. The delinquents complained that 
a raid had been made upon the Sabbath day, and de- 
clined to pay the 74 florins exacted from them by way 
of fines. It took a whole day's confab at the village 
tavern, amid clouds of smoke and endless pots of beer, 
to adjudicate the matter, and at the end the bill of 
the worthy tapster was fully equal to the amount of 
fines collected. Here is a copy of the bill paid by the 
town : 

Cornelis Jansen, Credit: 

Drank at the settlement of the fines, the 25th day of pi. Kr. 

October, 1671, at two bouts 34 o 

Also for Mr. Arents, engaged at writing, 2 vans beer i 12 
Further, after the settlement was concluded, also 

drank 5 vans beer and i muts rum 4 10 

40 2 

It is not told who got the rum, but the secretary of 
the conference was found physically equal to four 
quarts of beer, the vaan being two quarts in measure 
and the mutsje one gill. 

As a boy I have a much more vivid remembrance 
of the old Episcopal church of Harlem. On Ascension 
Day, in the forties, Trinity School made its annual 
excursion to this ancient Dutch burgh, and some of 
us discovered that the church doors were unlocked, 
and went in. It was a wooden building, of the then 



490 MY SUMMER ACRE 

favorite Grecian style of architecture, with Doric col- 
ums in front, and a pepper-box steeple. Standing in 
the block on Fourth Avenue, between One Hundred 
and Twenty-seventh and One Hundred and Twent}'- 
eighth streets, it commanded in its earlier days a 
magnificent view of Harlem and the East River, the 
still unoccupied meadows by the water-side, the hills 
beyond, the virgin islands beyond the mouth of the 
Harlem, and the hills that rose on all sides in the dis- 
tance, all as yet unmarked, save by scattered villas. 
In the days when I first visited the church it was a 
rural edifice, in a rustic village, and its atmosphere w^as 
one of delicious repose. I recall the tables of the Ten 
Commandments, the high pulpit, reached by stairways 
at either side, the ample desk and little mahogany 
" altar," so distinctive of the days when ritualism had 
not as yet been resurrected by the Oxford Tracts. 
But what most attracted my notice there was a marble 
tablet on the wall to the memory of the first rector of 
the church, George L. Hinton. A son of his, a boy of 
the same name, was my school-mate then, and, no 
doubt, stood at my side as I reverently read the in- 
scription. The son had been orphaned in a few hours, 
the father and mother having perished by cholera on 
the same day in the awful visitation of 1832. 

At one of the earliest meetings for the organization 
of this church, Mr. Charles Henry Hall made a gift of 
twelve lots on condition that the church bought six 
adjacent lots, and he was also one of the largest sub- 
scribers to the building fund. A wealthy merchant, 
he had his home on the site of the Metropolitan 
Hotel, occupying the entire block, with fine stables 
in the rear. But in 1829 he moved his family and 



•C O 




MY SUMMER ACRE 



493 



his magnificent stud of horses to Harlem. He was 
one of the first vestrymen of tlie church. Among 
other early members of that body were Lewis Morris 
and Abel T. Anderson, prominent Knickerbockers ; 
A. B. Sands, William Randel, Aaron Clark, Mayor of 
New York from 1837 to 1839; Edward Prime, the 
banker ; Robert Ray, John A. Sidell, Archibald Watt, 
District-attorney Nathaniel B. Blount, Colonel James 
Monroe, nephew of the President of that name ; Will- 
iam G. Wilmerding,. Jacob Lorillard, and other men of 
note living on the East River and on the Harlem as 
far up as High Bridge, where Colonel Monroe then 
had his residence. The first church was destroyed by 
fire in 1 87 1. It was rebuilt on the same site, a hand- 
some Gothic edifice of stone, but recent changes of 
population have been so great that it was recently de- 
cided to move the church site to the corner of Fifth 
Avenue and One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street, 
and to occupy yet another and larger edifice. 

The cholera made a terrible sweep in the village 
of Harlem on its first visitation, in 1832, and in many 
cases the sick and the dead were alike neglected. It 
was the Asiatic plague ; it slew whole households in a 
few hours ; its very name was a horror. At that time 
the engine-house of the Harlem fire company. No. 35, 
located at the south-west corner of Third Avenue and 
One Hundred and Twentieth Street, a few feet to the 
west of Church Lane, was used for a temporary morgue. 
Two negro men had charge of it, and they were com- 
pelled to act in the triple capacity of grave-digger, 
sexton, and minister. Scores of victims, when the 
plague was at its height, were daily .received there, 
hastily thrust into pine boxes, and buried in the church- 



494 MY SUMMER ACRE 

yard just beyond. I have heard an aged physician say 
that it was rumored afterwards that some were buried 
alive, but the exigency was too great for delays, and 
even the ties of kindred were sacrificed to fear of the 
pestilence. One day a man was found dead under the 
old willow-tree yet standing in the vacant lot on the 
south side of One Hundred and Twenty-first Street, 
opposite the church. A coroner's jury was hastily 
empanelled, viewed the body, and returned a verdict 
of death by cholera. In a week, eleven of the jury- 
men had perished by the epidemic, and the one ex- 
ception, marvellous to tell, was the foreman, Charles 
Henry Hall, who subsequently survived all his official 
associates of the Board of Health on their visit a few 
days later to the city quarantine. 



MY SUMMER ACRE 495 



CHAPTER XIII 

WRESTLING WITH HARLEM GENEALOGIES — CHANGES IN OLD DUTCH 
NAMES — THE VILLAGE PATENTEES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS — 
GOVERNOR NICOLLS CHANGES THE NAME TO LANCASTER — THE 
ANCIENT FERRY-MAN AND HIS FEES 

The lapse of time, I find, has wrought as great 
havoc Avith the patronymics of Hollanders as my 
boyish lips ever did with the names of Hebrew wor- 
thies and the rivers and hills of Palestine. Indeed, it 
would be next to impossible to trace some of the old- 
er New York families by the names which they now 
bear. Take the Rutgers for an example. Among 
the colonists who sailed for New Amsterdam in Octo- 
ber, 1636, was Rutger Jacobsen Van Schoenderwerdt. 
The last name indicates that the future settler came 
from a pretty Dutch village near where the Van 
Rensselaers had their country-seat. Twenty -five 
years later he had become owner of a brewery and 
a sloop that traded to Albany, and was a magistrate 
and "the Honorable Rutger Jacobsen" on the rec- 
ords of Church and State. His only son was known 
as Harman Rutgers, a private in the doughty burgh- 
er corps of New Amsterdam, afterwards its captain, a 
brewer like his father, and who became a purchaser 
of the brewery of Isaac de Forest, son of one of the 
earlier pioneers of Harlem, whose dwelling-house and 
brewery were on the north side of Stone Street, near 
Whitehall, where the well that supplied water for the 



496 MY SUMMER ACRE 

brew is said still to be visible. He was a sturdy scion 
of the Holland stock and devout withal, for in his 
family Bible, after announcement of his marriage, he 
places on record the prayer which many a modern cit- 
izen would be shamefaced about writing, though he 
might hold it in his heart ; " May the Lord grant us a 
long and happy life together. Amen." But then he 
prayed for his brewery, too : " May the Lord bless the 
work of our hands!" 

Time has played similar tricks with some of the 
names which the old settlers in Harlem brought with 
them from the father- land. Claude le Maistre, for 
instance, an exile in Holland from his home in Artois, 
France, was the ancestor of the entire Delamater fam- 
ily in this country, one of whose descendants, Schuyler 
Colfax, born in a house yet standing in North Moore 
Street, became Vice-president of the United States. 
Joost Van Oblinus, one of the original patentees, and 
a magistrate of worth and renown in the annals of the 
old city and village, would find his name changed to 
Oblienis and Oblenis, and finally become entirely ex- 
tinct on the Island of Manhattan, though it is 5^et 
found in other parts of the State, and in more than 
one case has oddly taken, through some strange influ- 
ence of association, the Irish form of O'Blenis. 

There were, in the early part of the seventeenth 
century, a large number of French Hugenots who had 
become refugees for religion's sake, in Holland, among 
them the original members to whom the Corporation 
of New Amsterdam issued patents for lands in Har- 
lem. Captain Joannes Benson, whose descendants left 
their name imprinted on the mill and stream which 
became noted in village annals, was an exception, and 



My SUMMER ACRE 497 

by birth a Swede. Into his family the McGowns mar- 
ried, and from this source, also, Eugene Benson, the 
artist, now of Rome, Italy, traces his lineage. Jan 
-Dyckman, ancestor of the family of that name at 
Kingsbridge, became one of the most prosperous and 
wealthiest of the colonists, and, like the Brevoorts 
and Montanyes — the latter claiming their common an- 
cestry in Abram de la Montanye — left many descend- 
ants both in the direct and collateral branches, as did 
the descendants of Daniel Tourneur, a native of Pic- 
ardy, in France, who have won their spurs alike in 
mercantile life and in society. 

This veiy week in which I write has seen the cele- 
bration of the fiftieth anniversary of the ministry of 
the Rev. Thomas E.Vermilye, D.D.,the venerable sen- 
ior pastor of the Collegiate Reformed Dutch Church, 
and he, with the bankers who bear that name, and 
nearly all who bear the name of Vermilye or Ver- 
milyea, trace their common ancestry to Johannes 
Vermilye, the patentee who came originally from one 
of the Walloon towns in Artois. One of the most 
intelligent and the most noted of the Harlem colon- 
ists was Resolved Waldron, a printer of old Am- 
sterdam and a burgher of New Amsterdam, whose 
descendants were many, and who was connected lat- 
erally, through his issue, with many of the leading 
families of the colony. His name has remained un- 
changed in the male line. But perhaps the most cu- 
rious change of all to be noticed in this connection 
is that which gave to the settlement the Kortright 
ancestry. Cornells Jansen, a stout trooper in the fa- 
ther-land, who bequeathed to his eldest son, Johannes, 
" the best horse and the best saddle, and the best 

3* 



498 MY SUMMER ACRE 

boots and the best pistols, holsters, carbine, and cut- 
lass," did not leave him any patronymic, but Johan- 
nes was at first called Cornelissen, and took the name 
Kortright when he had acquired the farm of Cornelis 
Kortright by purchase and entered upon its posses- 
sion. The name thus taken as of right going with the 
land was faithfully transmitted to his descendants. 

A week or two ago I received a letter from a val- 
ued friend in Harlem, in which he asked whether I 
had ever heard that the village was once called Lan- 
caster or New Lancaster? In writing back, I rather 
ridiculed the suggestion, and yet I lacked discretion, 
for he was right. When Richard Nicolls became 
governor of the colony, acting under his Royal High- 
ness and eminent rascality the Duke of York, he had 
sought to please his master by changing the name of 
New Amsterdam to New York, and then cast his eyes 
around for other changes which should obliterate, so 
far as they went, the memory of the Dutch occupa- 
tion. The flourishing little settlement of New Haar- 
lem caught his gaze, and forthwith he drew up a pat- 
ent in which the " freeholders and inhabitants " are 
notified that "the said town shall no longer be called 
New Haarlem, but shall be known and called by the 
name of Lancaster." This was one of the titles 
borne by his master, the besotted Duke of York, to 
whose pleasures the fertile Duchy of Lancaster, in 
England, contributed its revenues. The people of 
Harlem were at first astounded and then indignant. 
They determined to ignore the Governor's order and 
take the consequences. Happily, the change was not 
insisted upon, and it appears in no deeds of record, 
and exists only in the above patent, which is ad- 



MY SUMMER ACRE 50I 

dressed to the " inhabitants of Harlem, alias Lan- 
caster, upon the Island of Manhattan," and in the 
written directions for drafting it, in which Governor 
Nicolls presented three conditions to be observed, 
viz. : That the town should be forever thereafter 
called by the name of Lancaster; that one or more 
boats should be built, " fit for a ferry," and that the 
range of the cattle into the hills and forests to the 
west of the village should be extended. The latter 
two conditions the village burghers were very glad to 
grant, but the former they stoutly and steadfastly re- 
jected. 

The settlement had been originally christened 
Nieuw Haarlem, by Governor Petrus Stuyvesant, who 
exercised royal prerogatives in such matters. There 
was no one of the pioneers who came from Haarlem 
on the Sparen, and therefore no jealousies could be 
excited. Perhaps the last (and best) of the Dutch 
governors fancied there was a resemblance between 
the two localities — for the old city was washed by a 
gentle river and girt about with groves of elms, a great 
beauty in a land where forests were rare. Quiet as 
was ancient Haarlem, its history was heroic. For this 
reason above all others the settlers at New Haarlem 
were determined not to lose the inspiration of a glori- 
ous name, more especially not at the bidding of the 
Duke of York, whose fidelity to the reformed faith of 
England was more than suspected. For it must be 
borne in mind that the village was, in the first place, 
a city of refuge for those who had suffered from re- 
ligious persecution — the axe, the sword, the stake, and 
the dungeon of the Inquisition. Of the thirty-two 
heads of families who were freeholders in 1661, eleven 



502 MY SUMMER ACRE 

were French Protestant refugees ; four were Walloons 
of French birth ; four were Danes, three Swedes, three 
of German extraction, and but eight, or one-fourth 
of the whole number, were Hollanders. Many of the 
French subsequently removed to Staten Island and 
New Rochelle, and the farms were mostly sold to 
Hollanders, rarely to Englishmen, and the village 
thus became settled down to Dutch customs and 
modes of thought, and thus remained to the early 
part of the present century. 

A ferry was as necessary to the comfort of the early 
Dutch farmers as the church and the tavern. The 
cattle- fairs at New Amsterdam had brought New 
England horse-jockeys to that city, and when it was 
discovered that the cattle from that region were pref- 
erable to the domestic breed from Holland, the pat- 
entees at Harlem were anxious to trade with them. 
The ferry was leased for six years to Johannes Ver- 
veelen, " previded hee keepe a convenient house and 
lodging for passengers att Haarlem, and he shell have 
a small peece of land on Bronckside (Morrisania) and 
a place to build a house on, which he must cleare and 
not spoyle the meadow." In consideration of his 
building these houses, " the governor hath freed him 
from paying any excise for what wine or beere he 
shall retayle for one year." One penny in silver was 
the ferriage for a foot traveller ; sevenpence in silver 
for man and horse, and sixpence for a horse or any 
other animal. As carriages and wagons were not in 
use, no charge is specified, but to feed a horse for one 
day or night "with hay or grasse " cost sixpence. 
Queerest and quaintest of the charges in the list head- 
ed "Ye Ferryman and His Rates" were those for 



MY SUMMER ACRE 503 

hotel accommodation. They read : " For lodging any 
person, 8 pence per night, in case they have a bed 
with sheets, and without sheets, 2 pence in silver." If 
one may be privileged to read between these lines, it 
would appear that " the great unwashed " sometimes 
travelled up and down the country between Boston 
and New Amsterdam, always to the horror of the 
good Dutch housewives, who carried cleanliness to 
such a pitch of conscience that they went gladly to 
domestic martyrdom for their faith, as in the case of 
one portly housewife in Harlem who scrubbed her 
floor until it broke through with her weight and land- 
ed her in the cellar. 

The ferry had been in operation but a year when 
honest Martin Verveelen found his receipts rapidly 
diminishing, and waking from his slumbers to disccrn 
the cause, was informed that the horse -traders from 
Connecticut were driving their cattle across the ford 
at Spuyten Duyvil, and thus escaping the dues for 
ferriage. Complaint was at once made to the magis- 
trates, and an investigation showed that "one John 
Barcker had passed with a great number of cattle and 
horses," broke down fences that stood in the way and 
greatly defrauded the revenues, whereupon he was 
cast in exemplary damages. But the future needed 
to be provided against, and by order of the authorities 
Verveelen removed to Papparmamin, " on the main 
side " of Spuyten Duyvil, and set up his ferry anew at 
" the wading place," exacting tribute of all who passed 
that way except *' men going or coming with a pack- 
ett from our governor of New Yorke, or coming from 
the governor of Connectecott," who "shall be fferried 
free." In later years a ferry was opened at Harlem 



504 MY SUMMER ACRE 

proper, the ferry-house standing at the foot of Church 
Lane, where One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Street 
touches the Harlem River. It was torn down in 1867, 
and, with one exception, was the last relic of the an- 
cient dorp or village. 

It was not until 1673 that a monthly mail was es- 
tablished between New York and Boston by way of 
Harlem, and then it became a sensation anticipated 
for weeks to see the mounted postman rein up at the 
village tavern with his " portmantles" bursting with 
letters, and packages of portables, tarrying only long 
enough to bait his horse and refresh his inner man 
and then dashing away through mud or dust towards 
distant New England. A century later the Eastern 
Post-road was opened, and mail-coaches went through 
once a week, pausing for refreshment at Harlem, and 
then turning up the road to Kingsbridge to cross 
over by the bridge. Seventy-five years ago the mail- 
coaches travelled from New York to Boston twice a 
week, and only fifty years ago there was not a loco- 
motive running on the Island of Manhattan. The 
New York and Harlem Railway Company was incor- 
porated in 1 83 1, and two years later had horse-cars 
running on a single track to Murray Hill. But it was 
a herculean task to cut through the Yorkville tunnel, 
and it was not until 1840 that the first steam train on 
the road was put in operation between Thirty-second 
Street and One Hundred and Twenty- fifth Street. 
The locomotive first used on this road exploded on 
the Fourth of July, 1843, ^^''d occasioned a great loss 
of life. The scene of the catastrophe was at Fourth 
Avenue and Fifteenth Street. The temporary struct- 
ure at which tickets were sold in Harlem in 1840 was 



MY SUMMER ACRE 507 

a shed that was h'ttle larger than an election booth, 
and much resembled one. 

A volume might be written concerning the early 
settlers of this village that has suddenly become a 
mighty city — their homely, industrious ways, their 
uprightness and piety, their thrift, their pride of in- 
dependence, their love of fireside and home. I have 
been able to do scant justice to these toilers at the 
foundations of the city, but their ghosts have been 
pleasant companions at " My Summer Acre," and have 
been more real to me than those who pass upon the 
streets and are of today. They will always be to me 
as the scents of the roses and honeysuckles that with- 
ered in the garden and on the porch, imperishable in 
memory. 



5o8 MY SUMMER ACRE 



CHAPTER XIV 

CRITICISED BY A CROW — FAREWELLS TO THE OLD HOUSE BY THE 
RIVER — CONVINCED THAT ONE ACRE IS ENOUGH — AN OLD-TIME 
HARLEM LETTER — OUR FAMILY DINNER — THE LAST NIGHT OF "MY 
SUMMER ACRE." 

As I stood upon the back porch this morning to 
drink in the sunshine just dashed with frost, I heard 
the last of the woodpeckers hammering at the trunk 
of the old cherry-tree in search of his breakfast. He 
did not seem to be at all lonesome, but rather was 
a cheery little fellow with whom business had driv- 
en sentiment out of his head, or else, as I fancied, 
he might have paused and twittered out a few bird 
thoughts about the flight of all the rest of his fellows 
in feathers. But he was as heedless of creatures who 
cannot fly as were the sea-gulls that were skimming 
the waters of Hell Gate, and who, as they at times 
swung slowly up and then darted swiftly down through 
the sunshine, were a flash of silver in the sky. I stood 
and drew in once more the full beauty of the scene : 
the rushing river and unquiet Gate, the islands, head- 
lands, and black bits of rock amid the broken waters, 
with each one its own story of shipwreck and legend 
of the goblin days of the colony — the brown marshes, 
with their stretches of green lawn on the uplands be- 
yond them — the trees that bounded the horizon, all 
bare and brown when seen close at hand, but now 
transfigured by the embrace of the sun — and I drew it 



MY SUMMER ACRE 509 

all in, every fair feature of this wonderful Venice in 
America, so as to call it up before my eyes in the days 
to come when I should talk or think of the old house 
by the river. " If I were to moralize upon this scene," 
I began, half aloud, thinking that Nebuchadnezzar 
and Martha Washington, who sat curled up in quiet 
content on one of the steps at my feet, were my only 
auditors. " But you know that you never do anything 
else, father," broke in mischievous Mistress Nell, who 
had come quietly forward and stood at my elbow, 
" and the coffee is getting cold and I am hungry." 
Just then there came down from the upper sky the 
strident " Ah ! ah !" of a crow who was winging his 
way to the fishing-grounds of Long Island, and who 
had paused for a moment to fling down his mockery 
of the idea that age could moralize or youth be hun- 
gered, and Nellie and I turned to each other and 
smiled at the wise saying of the bird. 

There was nothing left for regret in the lawn and 
gardens upon which we turned our backs. There are 
bits of emerald in the grass-plot, but for the most part 
it is sere and brown. The syringa and lilac bushes, 
moved thereto by plentiful rains and a few days of 
late, warm sunshine, have sent out stray leaves of 
green, as if they were dreaming of a second spring, 
and a few marigolds and dandelions yet linger defiant 
of frost, but the glory of the flowers has departed. In 
black Diana's realm a solitary pumpkin, a very apple 
of her eye, revels in riotous sunbeams, and a few dilap- 
idated and disreputable stalks of corn keep it com- 
pany. The rest has become only a memory that we 
can carry away with us. It will serve us hereafter for 
epics at the fireside. There is not one of us who will 



5IO MY SUMMER ACRE 

forget the wealth that this memorable acre poured out 
at our feet. " If I were to moralize," I had remarked 
only yesterday in strict confidence to my cats, " I 
would say that you will dream many a time in the 
coming winter of the delights that have been yours 
in this delectable land, and whole armies of edible and 
well-digested songsters will rise from their graves and 
flit through your slumbers — but I forbear." It sounds 
magnanimous to close in this way, for, as I have tried 
to impress upon Mistress Nellie, I never moralize. 
We leave the gardens to the toads and crickets, for 
whom the builders, when they come next spring to 
remove the roof that has sheltered us and to lay the 
foundation of a modern brick abomination in the 
shape of flats, will make life a burden. 

The coffee was all right, and so were the delicate 
pancakes, in whose concoction Diana was a phenome- 
non ; but somehow we brought little appetite to our 
breakfasts. If we were but sojourners for a season in 
the tents of the Knickerbockers we had come to be 
fond of our temporary home, and none of us liked to 
say to the other in words that this was the last morn- 
ing that we should sit down together and have the 
trees above our heads and the river at our feet. Even 
Master Felix had caught the oppression in our hearts, 
and had commenced with, " I say, papa, at this time 
to-morrow—" when he checked himself, looked at us 
with a sudden pang of thought and gave relief to his 
feelings by stooping to pinch Nebuchadnezzar's tail, 
drawing from that patient animal such a howl of indig- 
nant protest that we all joined in the boy's hysterical 
laughter. Master Felix turned it off well, and inquired 
with deep affectation of interest in antiquities, " I say 



MY SUMMER ACRE JII 

papa, when will you finish about Harlem?" It was a 
relief to me to say : " That depends on the future, my 
son. I have only scratched the surface of the ground 
that is rich with a harvest of remembrance. It would 
take a whole volume to do justice to the men u;]io 
from first to last have made the marshes and wooded 
heights of Harlem to blossom into a city. Some day 
you may set yourself to the task, if you like." Master 
Felix smiled. He likes best to hear of the times 
when the Indians had their October camp at Hell 
Gate Bay, and reared the piles of oyster-shells which 
in after-years testified to their fondness for the deli- 
cious bivalve ; or of the days when, with blunderbuss 
and musquetoon, the slow but sagacious Dutch youth 
pursued the otter and rabbit across the spoor at the 
Kills and on to Horn's Hook. 

But I must pause here to speak of a letter which I 
have recently unearthed and that is addressed to the 
" Honorable, Valiant, and Worthy Lords, my Lords 
Petrus Stuyvesant, Director-general, and the Council of 
New Netherlands." It is written by a worthy voor- 
leeser and schepen, one of the founders of Harlem, 
who had sought and obtained the assistance of the 
council in wooing for his second wife a buxom widow 
whose husband had been lost at sea. Things had not 
gone well with him afterwards. The winters had been 
hard ; his pay had been small ; harvests had been 
niggardly, and age had added to his troubles until, at 
sixty-eight, he had incurred reproof from the council 
for being in debt upon their books. It was a primi- 
tive community, in which unflinching honesty was 
the rule, and incessant labor every man's lot. The 
unfortunate pioneer received the rebuke " with great 



512 MY SUMMER ACRE 

heart grief," but he adds, "not that my conscience 
witnesses to me that I am fallen into the same by 
any qjiis cingit ostio that I may have practised, hav- 
ing (without boasting) always kept my household 
in victuals and clothes temperately as a common 
burgher here ; but the excessive dearth of all things 
has driven me insensibly into such need and poverty 
as that never in the sixty -eight years that I have 
lived, so great distress have felt, finding myself desti- 
tute of all means to provide for my daily bread and 
provisions for the winter." Yet his courage was un- 
daunted. "My life," he writes, "is in Him who hath 
always helped me." So the brave old man, whose do- 
main covered my little summer acre, and many an- 
other that was then equally unprofitable, girds himself 
anew for the fight, and comes out victor in the end. 
These were the heroes and this the rude but heroic 
work that redeemed the Island of Mahattan to civiliza- 
tion. Doubtless their spirit survives in their descend- 
ants, but I sometimes wish that there were more of 
the ancient courtesy of address extant, such as is 
shown in this quaint old letter, to which the writer 
subscribes himself, "Your Worthy Honors' humble 
and willing servant." 

One of the surviving and immortal wonders of the 
world is the amount of luggage and trash which one 
small family can accumulate in the course of a season. 
We brought nothing when we came here, which is the 
way we put it to ourselves, but it is certain that we 
shall carry a mountain away. A few books here, a few 
pictures there, an easy chair or two, some additional 
comforts, then the furnishings of our temporary home 
kept accumulating at the expense of our city house, 
















.31^ . 



ft;n 



■'■n 



I 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



515 



and now we have been compelled to pack up amid 
many groanings of heart and at the expense of a day 
of rare discomfort. It would not be so bad if we were 
glad to go, but in our hearts we know that we dislike 
to close this pleasant chapter in the book, and though 
we say to each other that it will be a relief to be 
back in our old haunts, we somehow feel an attach- 
ment to this ancient mansion that makes the very 
ghosts of the men and women who dwelt here in past 
centuries seem like familiar acquaintances. This break- 
ing-up recalls the legend of the enchanted palace in 
which a mortal couple were allowed to dwell in un- 
interrupted bliss, but warned that the walls would 
collapse and their luxurious contents vanish at the 
first farewell that should be spoken. 

The old colonel was our guest at dinner, and Mistress 
Nellie was charming as she waited tenderly upon 
him. There is a secret between them, as I long have 
known, and I trusted to this dinner to reveal it, but 
even the mince-pie — which my old friend, the Presid- 
ing Bishop, says is not orthodox until " Stir Up Sun- 
day," for which see the Collect for the First Sunday in 
Advent — with its genial cheer, did not bring it to the 
surface. But we did bravely, none the less. The old 
colonel was in his best mood and gave us rare remi- 
niscences of his campaigns in Florida against the re- 
doubtable " Billy Bowlegs " and the Seminoles, those 
fierce but courtly paladins of the Everglades, and at 
the request of Master Felix, and on condition that he 
will put it into words, I told the story of the " Two 
Brothers," from whom-the two little islands off Port 
Morris in the East River are named. But Diana 
capped the climax, when the boy insisted that she 



V 



5i6 MY SUMMER ACRE 

should tell him the story of the two Hog's Backs and 
Captain Kidd, with which she had more than once 
entertained him in the kitchen. " 'Deed and 'deed, 
Mas'r Felix, I don't know nuffin 'bout dem beast- 
esses !" she cried out from her post behind Mistress 
Nellie's chair. '* Dat fool nigger what's courtin' me 
done tell me 'bout de debbil flying away wid ole 
Dutchman and leavin' him straddle de Hog's Back, and 
he wants me to go down and hear de old ghostesses 
sizzlin' on de Frying Pan Rock. Fse glad to go back 
to folkses any way, 'cause if I stay here any longer dat 
nigger '11 want me to dig down at de foot ob de rock 
by de garden shore for Cappen Kidd's gold." And so 
here were love and legend, buried gold and ancient 
fable, as the cap-sheaf of " My Summer Acre." It was 
marvellous. 

Just then something still more wonderful happened. 
My daughter left her place at the table — the twilight 
was coming on then apace, but we would not have the 
candles lighted yet — and went and stood by the old 
colonel, placing her little hand in his. " Father," she 
said, with a playfulness that was painful to me because 
its touch of solemnity, " you have been teaching me 
all this summer that one acre is enough for happiness, 
and I have learned the lesson of contentment with a 
small lot in life." I did not dare smile at her little 
joke, but the old colonel chuckled and said under his 
breath : " A centre shot, by George !" Then Nellie 
went on, with a tremor in her voice that lent added 
beauty to its gentle music : " Please don't laugh at 
my confession of conversion, but make room at your 
table to-day for the man whom I honor and revere of 
all the world next to you, and to whom I have given 



MY SUMMER ACRE 517 

my heart." I was speechless. NelHe came and knelt 
at my chair. The door opened. I heard a smothered 
duet of laughter which convinced me that Diana's 
lover and that sable spinster were in the plot, and then 
a young man came and knelt by Nellie's side, whom I 
knew to be the old colonel's grandson, a college tu- 
tor and preacher in Connecticut. Now, I do not like 
preachers outside of the Established Church, and I am 
still somewhat of a Dutchman in regard to Yankees, 
but what was a man of peace to do under such circum- 
stances? If I objected that he was not rich in this 
world's goods, what became of my pet theory about a 
single acre and an old-fashioned home? Besides, I 
should be in a minority of one. When the young man 
came in at the door behind him stalked Nebuchad- 
nezzar, bristling all over with friendliness, his tail borne 
high in air as a sacred oriflamme, and doinsf all that a 
cat could do to give the young couple his benediction. 
He had at once adopted Nellie's suitor into the family, 
and what could I do then but lift Nellie up and kiss 
her, with a few natural tears, as I placed her hand in 
that of her future husband and bade God bless them ? 
It was Master Felix w4io broke the silence with a re- 
mark that set us all at our ease : " Nellie, I'll get him 
to teach me how to shoot rabbits." 

The old colonel departed early, but it was nine 
o'clock before the family took up its line of march and 
left the Ark. Like our predecessors of Noah's time, 
we went out in pairs, Diana and her sable escort, both 
giggling audibly with happiness, in advance. Master 
Felix and I came next, and in a basket on his arm 
were Nebuchadnezzar and Martha Washington, growl- 
ing savagely. At the gate Nellie and Paul lingered for 



518 



MY SUMMER ACRE 



a moment in the shadow of the tall fir-tree. "Come 
away," I said to Master Felix, who had no memories 
of youth to recall other lingerings in unforgotten 
shadows. The quiet night came down and wrapped 
us up. I heard only the chirp of a cricket among 
the leaves of the honeysuckle vine on the porch that 
still was full of life though bronzed with frost. 

I do not wish to be thought irreverent, but in that 
one of the many mansions which will have my name 
upon the door-plate, I hope to be as happy as we have 
been in " My Summer Acre." 



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